Ransom
by LaCasta
Summary: Clark disappeared three years ago. An embittered Lex gets a strange phone call. Futurefic. Usual disclaimer. COMPLETED.
1. Default Chapter

A/N:  
  
Ren and Steve. I really meant to write you a PWP romance. Honestly! But then this started coming out...  
  
Maybe the muse decided this way, I'd have to write down what I feel. Okay, then. To Ren and Steve, my very dear friends, and soon to be about the best daddies any baby could ever have. Love from the soon to be Honorary Aunt LaCrazy.  
  
***  
  
"Personal and confidential." Lex Luthor turned the FedEx envelope over in his hands. Through the paper, he could feel the glossy heaviness of photographs. Well, well, this could be interesting, although it was more likely to be tedious. He slit the top and let the contents fall onto his desk. They fell upside down, and he flipped one over.  
  
God.  
  
The hair was longer, neglected, the face thin and, yes, anguished was the word. He was lying on a cement floor, behind bars. Lex felt his heart clench with a mixture of equally instinctive distress and contempt.   
  
Clark.  
  
The farmboy he had loved. No, he angrily corrected himself, the farmboy he had loved and who deserted him. That first night they made love. Afterwards, he'd held Clark in his arms and when Clark had clung to him, crying a few tears of happiness and excitement and release of tension, the droplets on his forehead had felt like a baptism with the holiest possible water. Clean and loved. And then--the next day. Clark had disappeared. That night, he'd finally gone to the farm to look for him. He wouldn't have put it past Clark to have told his parents. Or for Jonathan to have responded violently. To have beaten Clark. Or at the least locked him away. So he waited until he could talk to Martha alone. He'd asked where Clark was. She looked everywhere but at him and then said she didn't know. He'd finally begged. Only a few scraps of dignity kept him from actual groveling.   
  
He called or came by every other day for two weeks. She finally said that Clark had run away and reluctantly showed him a postcard. It was postmarked five days ago, from New York. Clark had just said that he wasn't coming back, that he was fine, and that he wouldn't write again.   
  
Hoping that Clark was being melodramatic or having a brief moment of panic, he waited. And waited. Days turned into weeks. Each day corroding his heart. Anger replacing fear. Hate replacing anger. He'd bared his soul, shared it as much as he'd shared his body, and Clark ran away from it. And he? He'd returned to Metropolis, to his father. To a destiny that was obviously going to be Clarkless.   
  
Well, whatever scrape Clark'd gotten himself into, he could get himself out of.   
  
He'd test his resolve by looking at the other pictures. Test it? He'd strengthen it. A closeup of Clark's face, a grimace of pain, covered with perspiration. Good. Another picture of Clark behind bars, looking even more thin and frail. Excellent. Another showing Clark without a shirt, back bandaged. Perfect.   
  
Last, the piece of paper. "I understand that the enclosed might be of interest to you. I will call at 10:30 to see what arrangement for a transfer might be made. Please instruct your receptionist to send a call from Mr. Ransom directly to you in person."  
  
Mr. Ransom. Well, it showed a primitive sense of humor. But one that would be disappointed. He'd take great pleasure in saying so. He called his secretary to tell her to send a call from Mr. Ransom straight to him.  
  
It came at 10:30 precisely.   
  
"Lex Luthor."  
  
"This is Mr. Ransom. I believe you received my package?"  
  
"Yes, but it's of no interest to me."  
  
"How strange. The subject said that you would ensure his release."  
  
"That was presumptuous. If true."  
  
"Oh, I can assure you, quite true. How quickly one forgets."  
  
"Forgets? Why don't you tell me exactly what you mean."  
  
"Three years ago in October, the...agency I serve acquired a particularly unusual specimen. It thought, at first, that we were interested in money and assured us that you would ransom it. It seemed quite certain of the fact, oddly enough."  
  
"When in October?"  
  
"The exact date was the 17th, as I recall."  
  
Lex's heart skipped a beat. The day Clark disappeared. No. This was some story Clark had concocted. Extortion. What a miscalculation. Lex would have showered anything on him. Once. But apparently the price of remaining Lex's lover was too high. Even if Clark had said no more sex, Lex still would have almost worshipped him, poured everything at his feet, just to see that wondrous smile, the one he would have sworn couldn't be bought with money. But time can't be turned back. A faked kidnapping. Sorry, Clark, too much, too late.  
  
"Aren't you a bit late in getting this ransom demand to me?"  
  
"Our original intent was not kidnapping. It was...something else. Knowledge is as good a way of putting it as any. But now, you see, the subject is increasingly fragile. The consensus of my colleagues was to keep holding it, but I thought that the value from that is considerably lower than the ransom that Lex Luthor would be able to pay. Particularly if I make the arrangements privately."  
  
"In other words, double-crossing your colleauges and selling him to me."   
  
"To put it bluntly, yes."  
  
"I do admire enterprise." Perhaps there was some entertainment to be had from this. String Clark and this Ransom along. Just like Clark had played with him. The door would finally be closed, that wound finally healed. "As a matter of curiousity, how much do you want?"  
  
"I believe that $100 million would be adequate."  
  
"Ridiculous."   
  
"For a specimen like this? I should think that aside from whatever personal feelings that it explained you had for it, the industrial applications alone would be worth that much to you."  
  
"Industrial applications."  
  
"Unfortunately, my colleagues are far more interested in learning of its origins than of its use."  
  
"Origins."  
  
"Oh, yes, we've narrowed it down considerably. The only problem is, that particular solar system was destroyed, so there's very little to go on."  
  
"I see." Well, no, he didn't, but he'd pretend that he did. "Frankly, Mr. Ransom, an amateur could create these photographs in any decent graphics program, and I'd require somewhat more certainty before we go any further."  
  
"I expected no less. Would you like to speak with it?"  
  
Lex briefly wondered why Ransom insisted on calling Clark "it." Doubtless some mind game or another. "Certainly, but that alone won't be enough proof."  
  
"If you're still interested after a phone conversation, I'll arrange for you to see it in person, or for your authorized agent to do so. I'll call you back in three minutes, and it will be on the line."  
  
He kept his voice deliberately steady as he picked up the phone again. "Lex Luthor."  
  
"Lex?" A raspy, timid voice, but still immediately recognizable as Clark's. The voice that had struck him as being a clear, light blue. He'd always thought of voices as having colors. "Lex, is that really you?"   
  
"Yes, Clark, what can I do for you?" His own voice, he was delighted to note, didn't waver at all. Didn't show that if Clark were here in the room, he'd want to wring his treacherous neck.   
  
"Please, Lex, if you can, pay him. I'm scared, Lex, I think I'm going to die. I can't stand much more." Tears in his voice. Really, Clark and Ransom were barking up the wrong tree. With a body like that, hone those acting skills, Clark could bypass him for money and go right to Hollywood. Ransom could be his agent.  
  
"Tell me what happened."  
  
"After we...after I had to leave, well, I was so excited that I just started running. I couldn't stop. I was so happy." Lex felt his throat clench. He'd been the one who was so happy. Until... "I didn't think. I was just so...and I ran too fast, and too far...I got near Los Alamos."  
  
"Los Alamos? Quite a run, Clark."  
  
"I...I was going to tell you the next night. That...that I came with the meteor shower. That I'm an alien. I didn't want any more secrets between us." Lex nearly choked hiding his laughter. Of all the feeble stories!   
  
"What happened then?"  
  
Ransom interrupted. "Somebody's coming. I've got to take the phone away. I'll call back later."  
  
When you have the rest of the story invented. Of course. How convenient. But how fortunate for him. He'd just been on the brink of wanting to be convinced, just from the sound of Clark's voice. 


	2. Chapter 2

As Ransom walked away, Clark withdrew, shivering, to the corner of his cell that he'd chosen as the spot to sleep. There was no bed, no mattress, but somehow it was just a bit comforting to be there.  
  
Lex's voice had sounded unchanged but...cold. Maybe that was why he was shivering even harder. Ransom hadn't said how much he was asking for but he seemed greedy. Maybe it was too much. Maybe Lex didn't love him any more. After all, even though he didn't know how long he'd been there, it had to have been a long time. Long enough for Lex to find somebody else. Maybe even forget about him. It might even have been years.   
  
He fought tears again, not even sure why he fought them. Sometimes he wondered if he had only so many tears in him, and they all had to be shed before he could die. And he was increasingly afraid that he would die. His mind kept wandering. Every part of him ached. The last time they'd let him wash, his skin started to peel as though he were sunburned. He couldn't keep down food any more, even the tiny amounts they gave him. His metabolism had slowed to accomodate it. That was part of why he was so cold and felt so weak.   
  
They weren't deliberately cruel. Going hungry was easier than having more pieces of meteor embedded under his skin to keep him weak. They'd even put a space heater near the cell and given him a blanket when they saw how he was shivering. But only at night--they took it away each morning so he couldn't hide anything under it, the same reason they only let him wear shorts. As if he was given the chance to find or steal anything. As if he could use anything to escape.  
  
They even eventually told him what they were finding out about him, though they'd at first laughed at him when he asked, thinking he was playing ignorant. They told him they thought they narrowed his homeworld down to one solar system. Then they told him that it was destroyed when the star went supernova. They were focusing all their energies on scanning that part of the galaxy for signs of life. He used to hope there was something there, but now even that seemed unreal.  
  
All he could hope for was Lex. If Lex would save him. Maybe, even if Lex didn't love him any more, he'd at least set him free, let him go back to his parents. At least he knew they still loved him. If they were still alive. If he was dying, he didn't want to be so desperately lonely. Kind eyes looking at him. Caring arms holding him tight.   
  
Or maybe he wasn't dying. After all, until now, he didn't have any experience in being sick. Maybe Lex was in time and would save him and take him home. As ritualistically as though they were prayer beads, he summoned up images of faces. Mom and Dad. Pete. Lana. Chloe. And finally, Lex. 


	3. Chapter 3

It was the not knowing that kept her awake at night. Clark's disappearance meant that there were a lot of things Martha Kent didn't know any more. Not just about her son, her precious gift, her miracle, but about her husband. Clark's disappearance had turned him into an old man, an angry, embittered old man. He was still the same to her, but to everyone else, he was cold. Brooding. Quick to find an insult in anything.   
  
She'd always known--and so had he--that one day, Clark would leave them, as all children do. But that would have been the natural course of things. She'd have been sad to lose him as an everyday presence in their lives, but known that he was leading an independent life, finding his own direction. She'd have been proud of him, the pride and happiness in his happiness so bright that the tinge of sorrow at her loss would have just served to make it seem more luminous. Even if her worst nightmare, of somebody taking Clark away, had come true, she'd have fought for him to the last ditch. There wouldn't have been any sorrow, even, nothing but determination and fire burning out everything else.   
  
But Clark had left them. Just the disappearance and then the terse postcard as an indication that he hadn't disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived. It was his handwriting. Nobody could have forced him to write it, that much she knew. Or rather, only a threat to somebody he loved and couldn't protect any other way. But that was such a small circle. For a child who came to them from the stars, he lived in a small world. Nobody had threatened her or Jonathan, that she knew. And of his friends, none of them could have been so good an actor to fake the utter bewilderment and eventual grief at his disappearance. Lex was the only one she hadn't known for long, and despite Jonathan's suspicions, if she'd ever seen genuine misery and confusion, it had been what she saw in him. The last time he'd come to ask if she had any news, she'd feared for his health, mental as well as physical, when she showed him the postcard. The tiny changes on his face, as though a vase had broken apart and then somehow, as quickly, become whole again, but somehow dreadfully wrong in some level of detail that she couldn't even discern.   
  
And Chloe. She'd come by after dinner each night, with her homework, to sit in a corner and wait. She tried to make confident declarations that Clark would come back soon and that she just wanted to be the third person to ream him a new one. Then she came every other day, then once or twice a week. Now Martha just saw her in passing downtown. Chloe always came over to talk to her, but the unspoken question seemed to hover like a pollution in the air, dimming the girl's smile and voice and eyes.   
  
Pete. She remembered too vividly how he had reacted. At first constantly on the move with the search teams, hopeful that Clark would be found somewhere with nothing worse than a sprained ankle and terminal embarassment. Then trying to make himself hope, but keeping up his grins and optimism to help her and Jonathan and Chloe. Finally, when it hit that Clark had left and wasn't planning on coming back, the attempt at stoicism until her own tears set him to hugging her and crying as though his heart were breaking, too.   
  
Lying brooding did nothing. She knew that her tossing and turning would be more likely to awaken Jonathan than if she got up. Looking at her husband, she felt a floodwave of compassion, as she always did. Clark's disappearance had aged his body as well as his mind; they hadn't realized how much they depended on Clark's help until he had gone. And Jonathan had thrown himself into even more physical labor than he needed to, trying to keep from thinking. But he was a man with too much heart to keep from feeling. From feeling wounded and betrayed as well as feeling grief and bewilderment.  
  
Maybe they should have taken the money Lex all but begged them to take, to go to New York and look for Clark, to let him hire every agency that looked for missing or runaway youth, to let him help. But Jonathan had refused point blank. She herself had been uncertain enough to let that decision stand. Lex's intensity had filled her with unease as well as yet another reflection of their shared confusion and grief. He'd acted like a man who had lost hope, not a man who had lost a friend whom he'd known for only a short time, and with whom he had little genuinely in common. It had seemed too much, and she had backed away. Everything else Jonathan had said about Lex turned out to be right after all, so his instinct there was probably right as well.   
  
It was almost morning. Jonathan would be waking up soon. Then her kitchen would have the full assortment of ghosts. Her past happiness and his, as well as the now bewildering image of Clark. She wondered if they had ever really known him. Part of her said fiercely that of course she did. The boy who left was as much a stranger as if somebody had substituted a changely. But her doubts kept whispering that perhaps it was Clark's heart that was the true alien, incomprehensible, foreign, and as destroying but indifferent as the meteors that came with him.   
  
A/N: More coming late next week. 


	4. Chapter 4

Nobody at LexCorp was allowed to have a very good day. Lex left no skin unflayed during the day's meetings, even the one with the still strictly unofficial advisor for his campaign for governor. If he couldn't take it, he should get the hell out. Lex knew what he wanted and was going to get it.  
  
Except when it came to a certain farm boy. He didn't even know what he wanted there. The answer should have been simple. Payback. But what if Clark hadn't left him. What if Clark had been taken away from him. Stolen. No. Bullshit. That ridiculous story about Los Alamos. About aliens. Keep it simple, stupid. If Clark had just said that he'd been kidnapped, he probably wouldn't have been able to keep himself from paying. Just in case it was true.   
  
Anybody who to take advantage of him, who thought they could play on his emotions, became more than fair game for retaliation. With no holds barred.  
  
When his secretary announced another call from Ransom, he picked it up and purred, "Lex Luthor."  
  
"Yes. I can arrange for you to see the merchandise in question."  
  
"Is the asking price still $100 million?"  
  
"It is potentially...negotiable."  
  
"I'd advise you to be flexible. After all, prolong the negotiations too long, and the value will plummet to zero."  
  
There was a long pause. "I'm aware of that and that is the basis of my willingness to be flexible."  
  
"It doesn't do to be greedy, you know."  
  
Ransom sounded piqued this time. "Are you interested in seeing the merchandise?"  
  
"That really depends on the price."  
  
"Ninety."  
  
"That's really not enough of a reduction. Forty."  
  
"Eighty-five."  
  
"Fifty."  
  
"Seventy-five."  
  
"Sixty." Ransom said nothing but the sound of his internal struggle was clear. "And that's dependent on my judging from inspection that it's a worthwhile investment." Let Clark make of that what he likes, if he's listening, Lex thought.   
  
"I'm willing to call that our current basis of negotiation. After you see the goods, you may be interested in matching my price."  
  
"Where and when?"  
  
"Tomorrow."  
  
"You're in a hurry. Perhaps we should take more time to think this through."  
  
Ransom's voice showed the tension he was under as he ignored the taunt. "Our agency transfered him to a facility in Montana. You'll need to fly there, there are no roads in the area." Ransom gave directions.   
  
"You understand, of course, that I take extensive precautions against any kind of attempt at hostage-taking. My people will know exactly where I am at any given moment and won't hesitate to come after me if they deem it necessary. The consequences won't be attractive; they don't follow any rules other than preserving my safety."   
  
"Certainly. I should point out, in turn, that if you were intending to bypass paying, you'd find that the value of the merchandise plummets to zero, as you put it before."  
  
"Then we understand one another."  
  
"I believe so."  
  
***  
  
Lex deliberately kept his mind on other things. The ostensible cause for his flight out to Montana was for purchasing some land there for wilderness preservation. He'd acquired thousands of acres of undeveloped but promising land with that announced intention. Some of it had already paid off. When the land was unexpectedly, by all except his research staff, discovered to have high-grade mineral resources, he'd justified development by plowing the profits into more purchases elsewhere.   
  
He firmly focused on the geological analyses of some more land in Nevada, where his first investigations had found more fossils than expected, indicating the possibility of oil. But when he didn't force himself to concentrate, his mind kept wandering back to Clark. That first night, he'd kept switching from daring to shy, touching or kissing or licking Lex and then blushing, eyes lowered. Lex had found it charming and amusing, and even a bit touching. He'd chuckled and reassured Clark that whatever he wanted to do was perfect. He was a clumsy lover but Lex didn't mind a bit. It had completely changed his theory that sex with a virgin was a waste of time and effort.   
  
He'd even thought at first, when Clark had slipped out of his arms early that morning and not come back, that Clark was made skittish from embarassment, so he'd waited happily for his return. Well, now he was waiting again, even happily, but the quality of his happiness was quite different.  
  
He realized that he wasn't reading the reports any more and put them back. He'd think about Clark instead. Think about his plans.  
  
The helicopter landed on a clear space of land. Lex frowned as he looked out the window. There was no sign of any building. But there was a man standing at the side of the clearing. Alone. Strange, Lex would have expected him to bring Clark with him. Lex walked over to meet him.  
  
"This way." Ransom indicated the bodyguard that Lex had brought with him. "They can come as close as the facility. But they can't come inside."  
  
Lex smiled. "They can, actually. I'll tell them not to."   
  
Ransom wasn't as good at these mind games as Lex was. Having that in common with 99.9 percent of the world's population. He just nodded and led the way.  
  
The facility was well-hidden, with the entrance built into the ground and hidden from any kind of aerial scrutiny by a thick grove of pine trees that would keep it unobserved even in winter. "Another person is bypassing the security for us. Look as though you belong if anybody sees us." Lex wondered for a moment about this, then decided it had to be window-dressing. A Potemkin village.  
  
They only passed a few people as they made their way through the facility. The lighting was full spectrum, but Lex was still aware of being underground. It didn't bother him, but he wondered how many people were involved in the charade.   
  
After what seemed an interminable period, they arrived in a hallway that was bathed in a strangely familiar green glow. Lex frowned as he recognized it. The meteors from Smallville. Now that was taking setup too far. He wondered how much they'd spent on this elaborate touch. A bad investment, in any case.  
  
Ransom opened a steel door and gestured at a cell. Lex's heart clenched again as he saw an equally familiar figure, curled up on itself, in a corner.   
  
Ransom spoke coolly. "He's here."  
  
Clark moved sluggishly and sat up. "Lex?"   
  
"Why, yes, Clark. It's been a while, hasn't it?" Seeing the traces of tears on Clark's face made Lex broaden his smile.   
  
It was warm in the room, a space heater going at full blast, outside the cell doors, but Clark seemed to be shivering. He looked, Lex swallowed as the words came into his mind, more dead than alive. There was something terribly wrong with his back. It was covered with veins that stood out almost like growths. His skin was a sickly greenish gray, not just on his back, but all over his body, and his hair was not just unkept but thinned. But even more, it was the way he looked frail and moved as though each motion cost a terrible price in pain.   
  
"Come here," Ransom said sternly, and Lex found himself wanting to glare. He should be the one issuing orders to Clark. He was already rising and walking uncertainly towards them. Lex reached for his wallet. He knew what he was going to do. Pull out three hundred dollars, toss them to Clark, say that Clark left so suddenly he hadn't been able to pay him for the sex, and the debt had been preying on his mind. Then turn around and leave. 


	5. Chapter 5

Clark reached the bars of the cell and holding with one hand for support, reached the other through to Lex. The gesture was tentative, almost blind. Clark's eyes weren't fully focused, Lex noticed. He decided to prolong the game and reached for Clark's hand, which he clasped in his.   
  
"Lex. You came." Clark's hand was cold and the skin felt like cracking leather.   
  
"Naturally."  
  
"All right, you've seen it." Ransom interrupted as Clark was about to say something, and Lex felt Clark's fingers tighten. "Are you still interested in paying?"   
  
It was the perfect cue for Lex's prepared lines. Perhaps he should...no. Not quite yet. He wanted to linger over this.  
  
"I'd like to know more of the background first."   
  
Ransom spoke impatiently. "Fine. After we interrogated it, which was quite an extensive process, we concluded that it was genuinely ignorant of its origins, but decided that as small as the possibility was, letting it go free would be too high a risk, if only because of the general concerns it might raise if the public knew that there was a real alien here. To keep it from attempting escape, we continued to weaken it, as you see. It's greatly enfeebled by the implants in its back."  
  
"Implants?"  
  
"Yes. Material from the meteor shower." This man must be related to Chloe Sullivan. "We also found that reducing its food intake to ten grams a week of carbohydrates helped weaken it, so we combined that with the implants rather than using more implants, as they also cause it considerable pain."  
  
"Humanitarian of you."  
  
A thin-lipped almost-smile. "We have no interest in inflicting unecessary pain, even on aliens. And while we avoided the trap of anthropomorphizing it, it appears genuinely capable of suffering and of expressing that suffering in human-like ways."   
  
"As I see. How will you explain what happened? After all, I'd hardly like to pay that much and have one of your double-crossed colleagues come after me."  
  
"All cleared up. Several of the scientists have expressed a concern that it is dying. I and a colleague will report that we found it dead and as the corpse seemed to be decomposing at an alarmingly accelerated rate, we destroyed it as a possible biohazard."  
  
"I see." Lex looked speculatively at Clark, who hadn't release his feeble grip on Lex's hand. "What if there *is* a bio-hazard? I might be unleashing a plague by bringing him back to the surface. Not the fame I want associated with LuthorCorp or even my own name." Let them think that their story was backfiring, that he was slipping away with a regretful gesture. He released Clark's hand.  
  
"It's safe. The changes from the implants create toxins that affect only it. There are unknown bacteria in its system, apparently in a symbiotic relationship, but when we isolated and tested them, they didn't cause harm to any of the animal subjects we tested. As fascinating as the topic is, and I mean that sincerely, delay doesn't serve either of us. Are you interested in paying?"  
  
Time enough. 


	6. Chapter 6

He barely recognized the voice coming from his throat as his own. "Sixty." He hadn't meant to say that. Why had he said that? It must be that he wanted an even more thorough revenge, was willing to pay for it. Plans started in his mind, new plans based on the new situation.   
  
Ransom bit his lower lip. "All right. Here's the account number."  
  
Lex stepped back and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. "This will work here, won't it?"  
  
"It should."  
  
"Greta? Lex Luthor. Liquidiate the AlTech stocks. What will that bring?"  
  
"Twenty point six."   
  
"Half the WestCorp holdings. How much?"  
  
"Seventeen point four."  
  
He thought for a few moments. What else was at its likely peak or under-performing and unlikely to rebound? "One-third of the precious metals stocks."  
  
More sound of keys. "Four point three."  
  
"The Treasury bonds."  
  
"The ones that have matured, six point nine. The ones that haven't, eight point five."  
  
"Just the ones that have matured. Take those, plus enough from the cash reserves to total sixty, and transfer the amount to this account. Immediately." He read the number.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Thank you, Greta."   
  
He hung up and looked back at Ransom and at Clark. Why in God's name am I doing this, he paused to wonder. "I assume that you can check the validity of the transfer."  
  
Ransom pulled his own phone and dialed. "Has it gone through? Good," and hanging up, gestured to Clark. "All yours."   
  
He entered a code into the lock and opened the door. Clark came out, slowly, as if not certain that it weren't a trick or a dream. Lex took a quick step towards him as he stopped, shaking. "I don't think he'll be able to walk all the way out." Clark seemed ready to fall to the floor and Lex put a hand under his elbow.  
  
"We use a chair to transport it." He went out and Clark sagged against Lex, closing his eyes. Grimly, Lex admired the thoroughness of their preparations. Clark was genuinely cold and almost skin and bones. Ransom returned with a wheelchair and Lex noticed that it had cuffs at the ankles, wrists, and neck, each with a green piece of meteor embedded. He frowned to himself as Clark appeared to be waiting for Ransom to pull them into place. Why continue the pretense now that the price was paid? For the first moment, he felt a doubt that it was a pretense. The acting, the setup all seemed too complete, too well-placed. As Ransom started to push the chair, he could see Clark seem to relax a bit, as though he'd realized that the cuffs wouldn't be used.  
  
Ransom muttered, "We might be stopped on the way out. Act bored, a bit irritated by bureaucracy if we are. You're here from the Centers for Disease Control. And be careful not to touch it."   
  
Lex smiled calmly, enjoying Ransom's agitation. He let his eyes occasionally rest on Clark, but casually, as though Clark were just another object in the halls.  
  
"Ransom? Where are you taking him?" A man in a dark suit looked puzzled as he came out of a corridor. Interesting, Lex noted, this one calls Clark "him."   
  
"Lab sixteen. Dr. Parker is here from the CDC."   
  
"The CDC?" He turned to Lex and shook hands. "Frank Pederman. I didn't know you Bug Boys were in on this."  
  
Lex nodded. "They briefed us Friday. There've been some interesting possibilities. Good and bad, unfortunately. We need to take a look."  
  
The man looked at Clark for a long moment before turning his attention back to Lex. "One thing. He's not human, that much we know, but...he reacts as though he were."  
  
"Even though it's not a duck, it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Quite a reversal." Lex chuckled. "I don't plan to treat him...any differently from the way you have."   
  
"I was afraid of that." The other man looked again at Clark, seemed ready to say something, and then walked down the corridor.   
  
"Quickly. He'll probably tell other people."   
  
Despite Ransom's increasing agitation, they made it outside without any futher questioning, though there were a few puzzled glances. "I don't think the chair will help much on the ground. I'll help you carry him back to your helicopter."   
  
"I can walk," Clark protested, adding, as both men looked at him, "if you help me."   
  
"We'll see if it's any faster." As they supported most of his weight, Clark half-walked, half-stumbled the rest of the way to the clearing. 


	7. Chapter 7

"All right, we'll take him from here." Lex gestured and the bodyguards came over. "Carry him in." Clark felt them take him by the shoulders and legs, and settle him into a seat. Lex followed him in and as the door closed, Clark moved closer, though he didn't try to touch him. He wasn't very clean, and besides, he wasn't sure that Lex would want him to. Plus, there were people around. Instead, he closed his eyes and luxuriated in being close, in hearing Lex's voice, in smelling that rich, subtle scent. He wasn't sure if it was cologne--it couldn't be aftershave--or it if was just Lexness pouring off. But he'd never get tired of it.  
  
Clark still couldn't make himself believe that he was out and free and safe. He wished that Lex had been a bit warmer, a bit less business-like, but then that was probably expecting too much. Lex had dozens, no, hundreds of people beating on his bedroom door, all more sophisticated and better-looking and wittier and more in Lex's world than Clark would ever be. A lot had probably changed in Lex's life, and he could hardly have assumed that Lex put everything on hold to make sure that he'd still be Clark's best friend...and lover. And even though he'd never been beautiful, as Lex had told him he was, now, well, he knew he was ugly. He'd not seen himself in any mirrors, but he could look down at his body and see how it had changed.   
  
But Lex had ransomed him, hadn't he? Sixty million. He had no idea how much that amount meant to Lex but it sure sounded like a lot to him. Even if it was chump change, Lex had still paid it. So Lex still had to care a little about him, even just for old time's sake. He'd come in person, too, instead of telling somebody else to deal with it.   
  
The helicopter was so noisy. He hadn't realized how quiet things had been in the facility. The whirring of the heater, every now and again, somebody coming to give him water to drink, maybe the person would say something to him, or he'd say something and usually the person would answer. They'd not tell him anything of what was happening in the outside world, just as another precaution. He couldn't really blame them, he guessed. They were just trying to keep things safe. Make sure he wasn't some kind of alien spy.   
  
"Lex?"   
  
"Yes, Clark?" So level.   
  
"Do you...do you happen to know...are...is everybody all right, back home?" He'd given in tamely to everything they'd done because they'd told him what would happen to the Kents if he did. Ransom had to promise that they were bluffing before Clark would agree to talk to Lex, to ask to be ransomed.   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"Mom and Dad. Pete. Lana. Chloe."   
  
"I really don't know, Clark. I left Smallville fairly quickly."   
  
"This is going to sound so dumb, but...how long was it since...how long has it been?"  
  
Lex pursed his lips. He had to think about it, Clark thought mournfully. "About three years, give or take."   
  
Three years. A lot can happen. A lot probably did happen. He desperately wanted to grab Lex's hand again, or to bury his face in Lex's shoulder. Instead, he clasped his hands in his lap and gripped them. Lex would help him. He still had some tiny part of Lex, at least. Even if it was only his pity. Even a more or less indifferent pity. It was still some tiny bit of him.  
  
Clark saw the ground change from nothing but thick tree-cover to fields and finally to scattered trees among buildings. The helicopter started to descend. Lex, who had pulled out papers again, put them away and looked at him.   
  
"I'm taking you back to Metropolis in the jet with me. I'll decide what to do then."   
  
Something was strange about that, but Clark couldn't figure it out. It didn't matter, really. "Maybe I can call my parents?"   
  
"Not now." Oh, right, it's not safe to call on an airplane or something. He hoped he wouldn't be stupid for good as well as ugly. It wouldn't matter to his parents, of course, or to his friends, but...he didn't want to be somebody they'd spend time with because they loved him, he wanted to be somebody whose company they'd enjoy. He was never able to keep up with Lex's mind, of course, but Lex had liked him anyway. Maybe they still would, too. Or maybe he'd get better. Three years, though. They'd have graduated, or be getting ready to graduate. College. Wow. He'd probably have to go back through at least all of freshman year. Would they even let him? He wasn't sure what the rules were, now that he was older.   
  
Lex was looking at him with a strange expression. It was amused, but as if he really weren't. "What are you thinking about, Clark?"  
  
"School."  
  
"Already." Lex's amusement was clear.  
  
"Well, I'll probably-" He felt his eyes fill with tears again. God, Lex wouldn't want to talk to a crybaby. Sure enough, Lex looked away. Maybe he was being polite. Maybe he wasn't disgusted, or not much.   
  
"Carry him into the jet." Lex got out of the helicopter so easily, while they were hauling him like a sack of potatos.   
  
The jet was something else. He'd imagined it would be something like a regular plane, but instead, there were only a few seats, and a big table. The lights were nice and so was the carpeting. Lex told a man in uniform, "Pull down the bed," and turning to the man carrying him, "You can put him there."   
  
The bed had nice sheets, Clark could tell that just from craning his head and looking at them. Linen or something. "No, really, I'm all dirty, I don't want to get it-"  
  
Lex interrupted. "Put him there." 


	8. Chapter 8

Lex watched as the staff went into the rear half of the plane and closed the door, then turned his attention back to Clark. He was awkwardly trying to turn on the bed, and Lex couldn't help but think of a turtle trying to right itself. He went to the cabinet and poured himself a drink, but taking his eyes off Clark only for the few necessary seconds. Clark had the same goal as that overturned turtle, it appeared, and was face down after a few minutes, then turning his face to the side as he lay on his stomach.  
  
The boy's muffled voice interrupted his train of thought. "Lex? Are you still there?"  
  
"Right here." He crossed to sit where Clark could see him, and made a few notes on the papers he had taken out again. Let Clark keep guessing what he wanted.  
  
"I...I don't know what to say. 'Thank you,' you know, it just sounds..."  
  
"Inadequate?"  
  
"Yeah."   
  
Let's give him something to think about. He added a note of amusement to his voice. "Sixty million isn't that much to me, Clark. I only bargained as a matter of principle. And after all, I was so besotted with you, I'd probably have tried to give you twice that much in presents by now, if we'd stayed together."   
  
That got him a wince. "'Was?'" Oh, looks like he might want to make up for lost time, Lex thought, his lips curving upwards.  
  
"Time waits for no man, Clark."   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Not that there still aren't matters between us, of course."   
  
Clark tried to smile at him, in a pathetic shadow of the grin that once could have outshone the diamonds on any Metropolis dowager's throat. He closed his eyes and Lex took the chance to look more closely at him.  
  
He wanted--and was surprised and angry at how deep the want went--to believe the ludicrous story about aliens and meteors, but it was as feeble as Clark's other inventions. The very preposterousness of the story marked it as Clark's. And everything that gave him cause to try to believe could be explained away. Clark's wasted state--window dressing. People went through ordeals on national television for a paltry one million. For, say, the thirty or more million that he assumed would be Clark's share of the payout, who knows what somebody would do to himself?   
  
The elaborateness of the setup? A bit harder to explain but still eminently possible. A magician's misdirection. Just to return and ask for money would be a bit much. A more conventional kidnapping? They probably knew that LexCorp had enough hired muscle and other resources to find and get a captive out of nearly any facility except the best military ones. So this would keep him from trying to rescue Clark with anything but money. There was that postcard, as well, which indicated that Clark had left voluntarily and was staying away voluntarily.   
  
And he still hated Clark for that. For drawing him closer, enchanting and fascinating him with what seemed like radiant honesty and goodness. For making him think that maybe he wasn't meant to be alone after all. For making him shed every bit of armor and stand naked of body and soul and heart in front of another human being. For making him believe again that he was capable of love. For making him believe again that he could be loved. Only to leave him. And now, to try to manipulate him.   
  
"Lex?" Clark had opened his eyes again and was staring at him. Lex didn't know how much of his thoughts were visible on his face and quickly forced the calm mask back on. "Can I ask you a big favor? Would you, I mean, would it gross you out too much to look at my back? They implanted pieces of the meteor rocks there and maybe if they're sticking out or something, you could pull them out? They...they're hurting pretty badly."   
  
"I'll take a look."   
  
"Thanks."   
  
Whatever they'd done to Clark's back, it had left it a mess. It reminded Lex faintly of photographs he'd seen of necrotic tissues after some kinds of snake bites. Lionel had made sure that Lex read those very closely when he'd visited Costa Rica. "Just keeping you aware of the dangers of the situation, Lex," he'd said, with mock gentleness. Another lesson he'd resented at the time but saw the point of now.  
  
"There's nothing protruding from the surface."   
  
"How...how would you think that I could get it out, then?"  
  
"I'll get Toby to look at you when we're in Metropolis."  
  
"Toby?"  
  
"My very discreet doctor. The one who treated Kyle"  
  
Clark's voice registered alarm. "Lex, I'd really, really rather not have a doctor."  
  
Lex smiled and let Clark stew before responding. "First, he's discreet. Second, he knows that keeping me happy is in his best interest. Third, suppose that he does start talking about treating...an alien. Everybody would assume he'd been sampling his own goods."   
  
"I guess so."  
  
"Remember, Clark, you're in my hands completely."  
  
"Yeah." Clark hadn't picked up on the hint of a threat, or thought that his manipulation of Lex was complete, as his sigh sounded almost contented, Lex reflected as he saw Clark's eyes close again. 


	9. Chapter 9

Clark was fighting the urge to sleep, though he gave in on keeping his eyes open. He could still feel things that way, the comfortable bed, the clean sheets, and above all, Lex's presence. Lex wasn't close enough for Clark to smell him, but he heard the sounds of Lex turning papers and and more importantly, could sense that he was there, even sense the movement when Lex crossed his legs. He knew how unreasonable it was to think that if he fell asleep, he might lose these things, but somehow he was still afraid.   
  
There was motion and suddenly Lex wasn't close by any longer. His eyes jerked open and he looked about. Okay, he was just getting another drink. The motion of the jet seemed to change and he asked, "Are we landing?"  
  
"About twenty more minutes, I think. Then I'll take you to the penthouse."   
  
"You don't have to...my parents...I don't want to be more of a bother than I've already been. Though that sounds pretty stupid, under the circumstances."  
  
"No, Clark, I'm taking you there." On one hand, he didn't like the note of command in Lex's voice, it sounded almost like his business voice, but on the other hand, it was somehow reassuring to know that Lex was making the decisions. But there was the one thing he had to know but didn't know how to ask without sounding pathetic and needy and pushy and demanding and even ungrateful. Maybe wanting what he wanted was pathetic and needy and all the rest of it. But he had to know, instead of trying to guess.   
  
"Lex...I know it's different now, but...if I were normal again, if everything was like it was before...would you still, well, want me?"  
  
"That's an interesting question."  
  
"I mean, I'm sure there have been other people..."  
  
"*Many* other people. Why do you ask?"  
  
"I...I was just wondering...nothing's like it was."  
  
"Heraclitus said that you can never step in the same river twice."  
  
"Hmmm? Oh, I get it, I guess, the river changes."  
  
"The water keeps moving." He figured that was Lex's way of telling him that he'd moved on. He so did not want to cry again but couldn't help the tears coming to his eyes, as he wondered who else had moved on.  
  
The jet was clearly descending and Clark felt his ears pop. Lex sat down again and buckled the seat belt. The descent became steeper and the roaring sound began to hurt his ears, so he raised his hands to cover them. It felt strange to be able to feel pain and do something about it. After a while in the facility, once they'd decided that he didn't know anything more than what he told them, they first tried to sedate him rather than implant the rocks, but that hadn't worked, any more than the painkillers they'd given him after the implants. Even if they had worked, it would have been somebody else controlling how much or how little pain he felt. After the jolt that indicated they'd landed and the plane stopped moving, Lex got up, went to what looked like a half-size wardrobe and gestured for him to get up.  
  
"I can hardly let anybody see me carting you half-naked, even if it's just from the limousine to the penthouse." 


	10. Chapter 10

Lex noticed that Clark was shivering again. Odd, that had stopped for a while.   
  
"Wow, you have a change of clothes on your plane."   
  
Lex smiled thinly. "You never know when you might need one. You're too tall still for the suit but the raincoat will cover you up." He raked his eyes up and down Clark's body but Clark seemed oblivious to the appraising glance. Clark stood up and Lex, after seeing how clumsily he still moved, held the coat for him. "If anybody looks closely, they'll probably think you're a flasher but nobody's going to get that close. Until we're inside."   
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
"Toby, of course." Lex let his voice's lightness border on mockery.   
  
"Sorry, I'm...I'm not...I can't think real clearly..." Clark lowered his eyes and looked more wretched than before. One of the crew opened the door and Lex stepped outside, Clark following. Clark clung to the railing on the way down the steps and looked at the small airfield. "Where..."  
  
"Just outside Metropolis."  
  
A limousine pulled up across the tarmac and Lex set a brisk pace to it. When he looked behind, Clark was looking forlorn and Lex called back, "Carry him, would you?" Two men scooped him up by the shoulders and knees. In the car, Clark muttered, "Sorry...I...it's weird, for most of my life, I was stronger than anybody else and now...it's taking some time to get used to it..." As the car started to move, Clark looked at him plaintively. "Can I call my parents now?"  
  
"No."  
  
Clark actually had the audacity to look dubious. "Why not?" No, his look was bordering on petulant.  
  
That was the last straw for Lex. He'd not lost his temper in years but some opportunities are just too good to pass up. "You started this game, Clark, and you just moved your pieces into my territory."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You aren't in control of this situation, Clark, even if my paying sixty million made you think you were. I'm a Luthor, remember? And we're willing to pay a lot for revenge."   
  
"I...I don't get this. You came because...because you...you..."  
  
"Shut up. Don't even dare to say it."  
  
Clark winced and at the helplessness of the gesture, he wondered for a wild moment if Clark's story was true. That would change everything, particularly the target of his revenge. But it would mean...all those ingenuous glances when he probed for the truth, the evasions, even the righteous indignation, had been nothing but lies. Never more so than when Clark had said that he loved him and had shyly made love to him. Either way, Clark was lying to him now or had been before. Nobody did that with inpunity. Look at what had happened to Victoria. And a few dozen others along the way.  
  
"But..."  
  
"What did I tell you about shutting up?" Why were Clark's lips still slightly parted moving barely perceptibly, as though he were mouthing words he had to say, no matter what? 


	11. The WorldCom Chapter (11)

This was worse than anything he'd imagined. Lex's voice, his eyes, and the expression on his face of hate and contempt. And a well-hidden pain. If he hadn't learned, slowly, how to read Lex's face, he'd never have seen it there, but it was as obvious as though it were written there, in the tiny clenching of his lips, the way his eyes didn't quite want to meet Clark's for longer than an instant.   
  
They'd not only taken away three years of his life, they'd taken Lex's love away and substituted a Lex who hated him and was hurting because of it. A Lex who was darkened. He wasn't just afraid for himself but for Lex. Whatever Lex did to him would only make him darker. He remembered that unsettling glee on Lex's face when Rickman had made him shoot him. He'd convinced himself them it was just Rickman's shadow but it had been difficult. Now, that darkness was there again, but even worse because there was pain underneath. Lex had obviously fought the part of him that didn't want to, that still cared about Clark--and he had conquered it.  
  
He tried to imagine how he'd feel if things were reversed. Not good. But he'd not want to hurt Lex? Or would he? Maybe just a bit, at first. But if he knew that Lex hadn't left because he wanted to, and hadn't been trying to get anything out of him, and had always wanted to tell him...  
  
"Lex..." The look he got as he spoke was as hard as though Lex had physically struck him. Clark dully wondered if that was what Lex was going to do, beat him, even torture him. Or maybe Lex was going to kill him. He didn't even know what he hoped for, since there was no way that he could hope for Lex to take him back to Smallville or care about him again. Wishes were another thing and he could feel them spilling over in a pile of wasted little "if only" fragments of dreams.   
  
"I'll tell you when I want conversation." Lex turned his head to look out the tinted window.   
  
The limousine pulled into a parking garage and Lex pushed a button. "Support him in as though he's drunk." The driver and another person in the front seat got out, opened the door, and hauled him out. Lex led the way past a doorman, who chuckled as Lex muttered, "Never agree to host a college student."  
  
"In there," Lex said briefly to the men supporting him as the elevator door opened into the penthouse. He pointed. Clark looked up to see Toby, wearing the same scruffy leather, sitting on a couch made of much more polished leather, as they half-helped, half-shoved him into a dark bedroom.   
  
"Toby, clear up whatever's wrong with his back."  
  
"Hey, don't I know this guy?"  
  
"You met him once a few years back. He's...changed."  
  
"I'll say. What'd you do to yourself, kid?"   
  
"There's something...embedded in my back. Green pellets."  
  
Toby's hands were surprisingly light as they probed at him. "This is one gross situation."  
  
"Always glad to get the professional medical opinion, Toby," Lex responded. Clark looked up to see him leaning against the wall and watching.  
  
"Okay, lie down and I'll see what I can find, if *somebody* will give me decent lighting, not mood lighting." Lex casually reached out and flipped a switch, and Toby whistled as he looked more closely.  
  
"There should be three of them," Clark added.  
  
"Yeah, there are three areas where it looks pretty damn ugly. I'm going to start digging up what's in the center. Lex, I assume you really don't want me just throwing it on the carpet?"  
  
Clark heard Lex's chuckle. "I'll get you a wastebasket." He didn't like the way that Lex emphasized the word, very faintly. He couldn't feel anything beyond more pressure in his back and was surprised to hear Toby mutter, "One down, two to go. Whatever this shit is, it's powerful stuff, that thing's not bigger than a grain of salt, and look at what it's done. Lex. You and your buddies aren't playing with chemical weapons, are you? What'd I tell you about war being bad?"  
  
"You want to forego your usual payment, that's fine, I'd respect your hippie ethics."  
  
"Heh. Milk the industrial complex, that's my motto." After a few more moments, "There's two. Come to Papa. Well, that's Lex, not me." He hadn't felt much when the first one came out, but with this one, Clark felt a strange warmth in his back, as though it had been asleep and was starting to regain circulation. "Now, come on, you crafty little mother, I know you're in there...okay, all out. Now, just got to slap a few pounds of disinfectants in there, wrap the mummy, and give you some good strong antibiotics."  
  
Clark tried to move as he felt the last piece of gauze taped down, but Toby put a hand on his shoulder. "Uh uh uh, not finished yet." He felt something wet and cold on his arm and then Toby muttered, "Weird. Hey, kid, you got thick skin there. Just broke two of my needles."   
  
He forced himself to think. "Ever since I was a kid. Some kind of skin condition."   
  
"Fine, I'll get you some pills instead." After a moment's pause, "Here's a prescription, pal. How you doing on those other pretties I gave you?" Hmmm? Oh, Toby was talking to Lex.  
  
"I've not complained, have I? Here's the usual."   
  
"You know what I like about you? You never whine about paying. Not like some of these folks."  
  
"Luthors always pay. And get paid."   
  
Clark wondered if Toby heard the implied threat, as the other man paused before answering. "Stay cool, Lex. You, too, kid. Don't go lifting weights or anything like that for a few days." He heard the door to the bedroom close, and then the outer door. It sounded like Lex had seen Toby out. Experimentally, he tried to move, and found that it was much easier.   
  
However, as he tried to move from the bed, he felt a wave of dizziness. His body was still slowed down. If he could get something to eat, and could keep it down, he suspected that that would be enough. If he could get to the kitchen, or if he could persuade Lex to give him something to eat, then he'd start to recover his strength, now that the meteors were no longer embedded in his back.   
  
Hearing Lex return, he tried to turn over and sit up. Unexpectedly, he felt a chilly but dry hand helping him, and looked at the figure standing over him. Lex was holding a handgun, pointing it at his face. 


	12. Chapter 12

Lex smiled as he saw Clark realize what he was holding. Taking his time, he moved the gun closer and closer to Clark's face, finally placing the muzzle against Clark's lips.  
  
"Suck it, Clark." He kept his voice low, even intimate. "Just like you sucked me off that night." He turned his wrist a fraction of an inch so that the gun nudged suggestively at Clark's lips. "Now, Clark. Do it now." He twisted the gun again.  
  
He lifted his eyes from the gun and Clark's mouth to meet Clark's own gaze.   
  
Clark hadn't changed his methods a bit. The eyes that met him seemed to overflow with what he could only characterize as an expression of trust, and innocence, and love. Clark must think that he was still an infatuated idiot. Somebody who hadn't learned the lesson Clark had mercilessly taught.   
  
"Do it, Clark." He lifted the gun away to slide it across Clark's cheek, then back to his mouth. Clark's eyes didn't leave his for an instant, or change expression. If anything, his face seemed to become more gentle, almost otherworldly, with the pale skin over the pure lines of the bones, and the eyes huge and almost, almost disarming.   
  
Lex took a deep breath. "All right, then." He'd drop the elaborate plans. Finish it now so those eyes wouldn't look at him any more like that. He pulled the gun back, pointing it directly at Clark's right eye, withdrawing it slowly so that Clark would have the chance to stop, to flinch, to break that regretful, tender gaze.   
  
It felt as intimate a moment of mutual surrender as when Clark had timidly, eyes lowered, blushing furiously, said that he loved him, and Lex had responded. He pulled the trigger, noting as he did the faint tremor of his hand.  
  
There was nothing but a red mark on Clark's cheekbone, then nothing but a bullet popping into the air, and landing, flattened, on the bed. He saw that both he and Clark were looking at it, and he reached with his free hand to pick it up.  
  
It lay in the palm of his hand, just barely cooled enough to touch, the point smashed flat. He turned it over with his thumb, then looked again at Clark. Now, Clark's eyes were finally lowered.   
  
He put it and the gun down on the table and touched the faint red mark on Clark's cheek, not moving his hand even after he felt the heat of the bullet's impact. Every motion seemed as slow and stylized as a Noh play, or as though all the possible futures this moment could hold were material in the air around them, and each gesture had to push through them. Clark's hand rose to touch his, lightly cupped over the curve of his own hand.  
  
"So it was true."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"But you...you still lied to me." Lex tried to regain some coldness, some harshness. Instead, his voice was plaintive.  
  
"Forgive me, Lex." No words of excuse. No explanation. Just the request.  
  
"Would you have told me the truth?" It felt as though these moments were made out of honesty. A final, naked honesty between them.  
  
"Yes. I don't know when. But I always wanted to. From that first time I saw that my hiding it hurt you."   
  
Lex found another grievance, as he frantically searched his mind for something to rekindle the anger and hate that had been part of him for so long. "You wrote to your parents. Not to me." If he had been so blind and so wrong for those years, then he was beneath contempt. Clark had taught him about trust, but not enough. Not enough.   
  
"They made me. They dictated what I had to say. I was afraid that if I asked to write to you, they'd think that you were helping me. They threatened my parents. I was afraid that by mentioning you, I'd already put you in danger. I wasn't going to risk it." Clark's voice was slow and hesitant, as if he were translating from another language. "Those years...I kept thinking about you. I didn't know whether to hope that you still loved me or that you'd forget about me. I never dreamt you'd hate me."  
  
"How could I not? It was as though...as though you'd reached deep inside me, only to rip me apart." Lex shook his head. "That's a melodramatic way to put it."  
  
"If I'd known..."  
  
"We could both say that." The amusement that nearly rose to his throat in a laugh felt as tangible and bitter as bile. If he'd known that Clark had been taken away from him, well, he might have still destroyed lives, but it would have been to reclaim what was his. He'd have let nothing keep him from rescuing his lover, and Clark's return to his life would have been redemption.   
  
"Lex...do you still love me?" Lex recognized this as the final question that had to be asked for honesty between them. Easy to say yes. Wise to say no. Painful to tell the truth.   
  
"I...I don't know." And now he had to ask. "Do you still love me?" He had no doubts about the validity of the question, no doubts that Clark had loved him.  
  
Clark nodded slowly. "All I could do there was keep loving you. If I'm still sane, it's because I was able to keep loving you. You and my parents and my friends. But especially you. "  
  
Lex flattened his hand against Clark's cheek, so every part that could touch even a fraction of Clark's skin was resting against it. Clark's own hand flattened against his. "I don't deserve that. Maybe then I did. But not now." If seeing love in Clark's eyes was agonizing, he knew he'd never withstand seeing the contempt that would come with comprehension of the kind of man he had become. Lex moved his hand from underneath Clark's and turning, left the room. 


	13. Chapter 13

Lex forced his mind to think of the practical things. Take Clark back to his home. He still had the Kents' number memorized. The answering machine picked up, but he couldn't think of what message to leave. They must be outside, he decided, they weren't the kind of people who would let the machine screen their calls. All right. He'd do what he could to make Clark more comfortable, then try again.  
  
Clark must be hungry. He went into the kitchen, picked up a glass, and then threw it against the steel door of the refrigerator. Of course Clark was hungry. They'd been starving him. If he had only had the kind of faith that Clark deserved--the kind of faith that Clark felt--he'd have rescued him before then. Before his gentle lover was a pathetic wraith. Before he himself had become--what he was. The reflection of his father.  
  
That was all very well, but brooding wasn't actually tending to Clark. Kicking the shards of glass aside, he poured juice into another glass, and looked around the kitchen. No, just the juice for now, he didn't want to make Clark sick. Now that was another beautiful piece of irony. He should start a collection.  
  
But for right now, Clark was still oblivious. He could take each moment left, memorize each tiny detail before he had to give it up for good. Each look from Clark, each gesture of trust and love, as though Clark were his mother, or Pamela. Somebody he'd loved with all his heart, and who died. The irony. Clark presumably couldn't die, but he'd killed everything in him that Clark had loved.   
  
He carried the juice into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you think you can drink this? It's just juice." Clark nodded and Lex slipped an arm behind him to support him, then held the glass to his lips. Clark sipped and then gagged.  
  
"Sorry. It's too...too rich."  
  
He should have thought. "I'll water it down." He returned, and this time Clark was able to swallow.   
  
"Better now?"  
  
Clark nodded sleepily. Lex couldn't keep himself from smoothing the tangled hair away from his forehead.  
  
"Don't...I must be pretty disgusting...it must have been weeks since I washed."   
  
"Never disgusting." He wouldn't think of the irony there. "But would you like, no, not a shower yet, a bath?"  
  
"God, yes." Clark's smile, still sleepy, curled in anticipation.   
  
"Coming up." As Clark tried to get up, he put a hand on his shoulder. "No, stay there, I'll get it ready."  
  
He ran warm water into the sunken bathtub and took clean washclothes, putting them on the side, opening a new cake of soap. The temperature was just a bit warmer than right, but it would cool by the time he got Clark in. It felt good to let these thoughts to Clark's comfort occupy all his mind.   
  
Lex returned to the bedroom and saw Clark's expression change briefly as he tried to lower his legs over the side of the bed. He put one arm under Clark's knees, the other behind his back.  
  
"Stop, I'm too heavy, you'll hurt yourself."  
  
"You don't weigh much at all." Clark was extraordinarily light, even for being skin and bones. He wondered if Clark's body was less dense, perhaps a different bone composition.   
  
He'd forgotten about Clark's clothing, the thin shorts, and as he carried him into the bathroom, lowered him onto the dressing bench. Clark laughed faintly as Lex crouched to help him.  
  
"What is it?"   
  
"Remember? That time I sat on that antique chair and it creaked and broke? You just laughed and said that they hadn't built for modern men....you went on and on about how much smaller people used to be, because you saw that I was embarassed. And then you showed me the armor, it didn't even come up to your shoulder, and said that was part of why museums put them on stands, so they'd look impressive." Lex recalled, all too clearly, Clark blushing and apologizing and frantically gathering the splintered wood, his distraught air.  
  
He wouldn't let himself look at Clark's body. Not so much for Clark's sake but for his own. Some things, it would be better not to remember once they were lost. Resolutely, he helped Clark into the bathtub, rubbed the soap against the damp washcloth, and careful not to let his hands touch Clark's skin, lightly rubbed him with the cloth.   
  
Just as well, he thought to himself, that he was crouching next to the tub, so Clark couldn't see the effect of his air of sleepy abandonment and tiny noises of pleasure as he lazily stretched under Lex's ministrations.  
  
"Sit up straight, okay? Those bandages shouldn't get wet."  
  
"'Sokay. It feels like they've healed."  
  
Lex was about to say something dubious and then remembered that his track record with understanding anything about Clark hadn't been very good. He gingerly peeled back the adhesive tape holding the first bandage in place. Sure enough, the skin underneath was pink, faintly wrinkled, as though recovering from an injury, but definitely healed. Was that a hint of a smug smile on Clark's face, as if to say "Told you so?"   
  
"Fast work, Clark." He kept a deliberately straight face, before realizing he was slipping into the old rapport. It was definitely a smile turning into a grin, and Clark lazily scooped a few drops of water into his hand and splashed him. "I mean, of course, fast work on the reversion into childhood." He couldn't take much more of this--a naked, wet Clark was one difficult thing, a naked, wet, affectionate, playful Clark was quite another.  
  
He finished washing him, and got up to take the terrycloth robe from the hook on the wall. Clark looked ready to protest and Lex had to keep himself from either laughing at Clark's expression--surely Jonathan or Martha would recognize that pout--or screaming in frustration. "You need to get some sleep."  
  
Even Clark couldn't disagree with that, and Lex helped him up and into the robe. His powers of recovery were remarkable; not only was he able to walk back into the bedroom, but he barely needed Lex's support. Just like the child he'd resembled earlier, he was sound asleep almost the moment he was in the bed. Lex looked at him for a long moment. So much could have been different.  
  
Looking at Clark wouldn't make it any easier. He'd go call the Kents. 


	14. Chapter 14

"Hello?" Martha was still outside. Jonathan prefered for her to answer the phone, and she didn't mind, just shook her head and looked at him when he let it ring, but she hadn't heard it.   
  
"Clark is with me." Lex Luthor's voice. He couldn't think of a thing to say.  
  
"He's sleeping now, but I'll bring him back once he's awake."  
  
"Where are you? Where is he? Where has he been all this time? By God, if you've-"  
  
Lex's voice cut over his, but jaggedly, not the usual smoothness. "It's a long story. I don't want to leave him alone. I'll call before we leave."  
  
"Martha!" He shouted out the door and she came running. "It's Lex Luthor. He says Clark is with him."  
  
"Where is he?"  
  
"Phone."  
  
"Lex? Where? Is he all right?" Jonathan couldn't hear Lex's words, but could guess from the effect on her face. Anxiety springing up again, as vivid as during the first days after Clark disappeared, and then faintly wiped away.  
  
"All right."  
  
"No, don't leave him alone."  
  
"Yes."  
  
A long pause, and a quiet, "Thank you, Lex." She hung up.  
  
Clark was coming back.   
  
He'd repeated that sentence and all its possible variations numberless times, in the numberless different shades of fear and pain. And now, finally, it was a simple statement of fact.  
  
Jonathan and Martha instinctively moved together, clinging for comfort and solidity. The world had changed again, and the only constant was each other.  
  
"I can't believe it. He's really, finally, coming back." He could barely hear Martha's words as much as he felt them against his chest.   
  
"He's coming back." He'd finally said those words out loud.   
  
"I...I wish I'd thought to ask what happened," she half-laughed.  
  
"He'll tell us soon enough."  
  
"God. I feel like he always felt at Christmas. When it was far away, it wasn't too bad to wait, but now that it's close, each second takes forever."  
  
He saw in his mind's eye, as he knew she did, the excited, restless face, trying to be good and not ask yet another time how close Christmas is, but the question bursting out anyway, in a little explosion of child energy.   
  
"Everything's changed so much. He'll probably feel lost at first." The plant had expanded. Lex had kept the plant operational but made it an experimental facility. The town now had more engineers and chemists and physicists and managers than farmers or shopkeepers. Fortunately, organic produce was fashionable enough that they'd done fine, unlike many people whose rents and taxes had gone up drastically with the increased property values. They'd done better than fine, in fact; not feeling the slightest qualm about nearly doubling their official prices for produce. Of course, old customers got the old prices. Those down on their luck paid just enough to let them keep their pride and share a laugh; they knew that "those newcomers" paid more.  
  
"I'm glad we left his room just as it was. Though, God, he's nineteen now." He remembered the first time the day they'd picked as Clark's birthday passed. He'd tried to ignore it, but when he saw that she couldn't, he was furious with Clark. With Nell, who had come by, of course by coincidence, to boast about *her* perfect adopted niece's latest triumph. With himself, for caring so much still.   
  
"He'll probably say that he's not a little kid any more." He didn't have to try to smile. An idiot grin was spreading all over his face. To hell with the fact that they didn't know where Clark had been or what he was doing or why. Fuck the fact that Lex Luthor had gotten his arrogant ass involved again. Clark was coming back. 


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Man, this one is coming quickly--the muse is hitting me upside the head so often that for the first time, I'm feeling some identification with Lex!  
  
I think this is the next-to-last chapter, but given that I'm typically just guessing about things like that, it might not be.   
  
***  
While Clark had slept, Lex had gathered what he'd need, sitting with his laptop in a corner of the room so that he could watch over Clark. When he thought it over, he was faintly worried by Clark's child-like responses, and wanted to be reassured that they were just the result of exhaustion and relief, not the lasting signs of trauma, either brain damage or emotional aftermath. After all, Clark had spent three years in the equivalent of prison and torture, and might well have become helpless. But then, there were still signs of that sturdiness from his earlier life that had been visible even through the moments of vulnerability or doubt. He had to hope that was true.  
  
He also hoped fervently that the Kents would let him help Clark return to his life. Tutors to make up for the lost years, rather than put him through high school, three years older than his classmates and out of three years of the latest movies and music, confused by all the casual references of conversation. Metaphorically alienated as well as literally. Then college--if that was what Clark wanted. Once he knew where Clark would want to go, getting him admitted would be no problem that a generous check and letter to the administration couldn't solve. Also, a cover story for his disappearance. He lightly drummed his fingers on the keyboard as he thought of the various possibilities.  
  
There was movement from the bed and he looked over to see Clark clearly bewildered, not quite understanding at first where he was or why, and then the signs of recognition pass over his face.  
  
"How are you feeling?"  
  
"Much better." He believed it, from Clark's eyes and voice, much closer to the Clark he'd known before.   
  
"Something to eat?"  
  
"Yes, please." And there was a hint of the old smile.   
  
"In here or-"  
  
"No, I want to get up." Clark took his arm just as a precaution as he got up, and followed Lex into the kitchen.  
  
"Wow. Is this a real kitchen or one of those 'kitchen of the future' things?"  
  
"Real kitchen. Real food." Clark leaned over him as he opened the refrigerator. "What looks good?"  
  
"What're those?" Clark was pointing to a bowl of Ranier cherries.  
  
"Ranier cherries."  
  
"Cherries are supposed to be red."  
  
Fortunately, Clark was joking rather than genuinely confused. "Expand your horizons." He handed the bowl to Clark and seeing Clark's struggle to eat politely, turned back to the refrigerator.  
  
"Soup?"   
  
He got a muffled response and then a sheepish, "What kind?"  
  
"Aspargus and corn with crab meat."   
  
"That's not a normal soup."  
  
Lex pulled the container out, poured the soup into a bowl, heated it, and firmly handed it to Clark. Clark didn't even wait for a spoon, but raised the bowl to his mouth and gulped, then lowered it, blushing. "Sorry, I...it just..."  
  
"More?"  
  
When Clark had finished another bowl, more slowly than the first, he looked sleepy again. But rather than give in to the temptation to send him to bed, to keep up the pretense that they had a future together, he said, making his voice light, "If you want, we can take some food with us, and you can sleep and eat in the car."  
  
"Car? Where?"  
  
"I just talked to your parents while you were asleep. They're waiting for you back home." 


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Okay, this actually does feel like the last chapter. Let me know if you think it isn't!  
***  
  
Martha was closest to the phone when it rang again.  
  
"Hello?" Jonathan could tell by the look on her face that it was Lex.  
  
"Yes, we'll be waiting." He'd not seen that smile on her face for a long time.  
  
"Thank you again, Lex."  
  
The three hours dragged. It felt absurd to be sitting looking at one another and waiting, but doing anything seemed ridiculous, anti-climactic, absurd. He tried to turn on the television, tried to read, tried to talk about anything, but finally, just settled down to sit next to Martha, her head resting on his shoulder, holding hands tightly in her lap.   
  
Seeing headlights approach and then pass by, he muttered, "There should be a law against that."  
  
"Absolutely."   
  
"Do we have any brownies?"  
  
"I was going to send a batch to the Talon, but if you want some now..."  
  
"No, I was thinking Clark would."  
  
"Uhm hmm."   
  
The three of them sitting in the kitchen eating brownies. He looked at his watch again. Three hours had passed. Probably there was traffic. If he decided that it would be another half-hour, then that would mean that he'd be pleasantly surprised. That was a good, sound policy.   
  
Headlights approached and then pulled in. He and Martha almost stumbled over one another to get to the door, and the limousine had barely stopped before the door opened and Clark emerged.  
  
So thin, so pale, but there. In their arms, finally, and holding on as though letting go was not an option. That was being a family, he thought with satisfaction, after a few minutes had passed, none of them said anything about going inside, they were just suddenly walking inside. Clark looked over his shoulder. "Lex? You coming?"  
  
"In a few. You get settled in first." There was something final about Lex's voice. Damn. The boy might have made all the wrong decisions--and Jonathan couldn't help but think that that particular phase started after Clark had left--but he was sensitive, no, deferential enough, to leave Clark with his family for those first moments. And the look of tenderness on his face as he looked at Clark. Better not think about it. Just about Clark.  
  
There was Martha, putting the milk carton in front of Clark. "No glass?" he asked, looking up at her.  
  
"I thought you said it tastes better that way." Clark grinned.  
  
"What happened, son?"  
  
"I...got caught. some government agency, I'm not sure who. I was running and I guess they picked me up on radar or something. They...actually used a missile to shoot me down." Clark's eyes were haunted again, and they both moved closer to him, enveloping him. "It knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was in this...lab. They had this hydraulic press, they used it to hold me down. They knew who I was, they looked in my wallet. So I had to tell the truth. They...didn't believe me at first, but finally they did, but they didn't want to let me go, just in case. They made me write that postcard, and then they locked me up."   
  
"What did they do to you?" Martha ran her fingers along his pale, emaciated arm.  
  
"They wanted to keep me weak and so they...dug meteor pieces into my back." Some of Jonathan's rage must have shown on his face, as Clark added, hastily, "They didn't do it to...to be mean." He blushed at the childish phrasing. "They didn't try to do things that hurt, they said they had to. Just in case."   
  
Martha spoke up again. "How did you get out?"   
  
"One of them...well, when I was first there, I thought I could...if I told them that Lex would pay them if they let me go, they didn't, of course, but when I started getting really sick, he called Lex, said that he'd make a private deal."  
  
"So Lex ransomed you?"  
  
"Yeah." Clark's voice was awed. "Sixty million."  
  
Jonathan saw his own reluctance mirrored in Martha's eyes. He didn't want Clark to learn what kind of a man his friend, his rescuer, had become. More ruthless and hated and feared than his father. Nothing good ever happened to his enemies and nothing bad was ever proven about him. Hard to believe that about the man who had rescued Clark, who was standing outside.  
  
A huge yawn from Clark let him stop thinking about that. "You're exhausted, young man."  
  
"Go to bed now," Clark was practically purring. The milk traces on his son's lips didn't help Jonathan keep images of cats out of his mind.   
  
"We'll talk more in the morning." It wouldn't all be pleasant, but at least Clark was there again. The Clark they knew.   
  
They walked him up the stairs to his room, again, without even speaking, just moving as a unit. He remembered tucking Clark in as a young child. If anything during the day had upset Clark, the world wasn't quite right again until they'd both kissed and reassured him. Sure enough, he didn't quite settle into the pillows until they'd both leaned down to kiss him. "You don't have to do chores until, oh, seven."   
  
"Daaaad," Clark whined, laughing.  
  
"Sleep well, son."  
  
When they went back downstairs, Lex was still outside, leaning against the car. "Come in, Lex," Martha called, her voice warm.  
  
The young man's face looked...pinched. Fish-belly white. He nodded tightly and, clutching two folders, came inside.  
  
"Clark told us...you saved him. There's no way to thank you enough," she continued. They went into the kitchen and after she and Jonathan sat again, with a clear reluctance, he sat on the edge of a chair.  
  
His mouth twisted. "Here's what I have in mind. I don't want him branded as the kind of kid who runs away from a good family, or you branded as the kind of parents who make a person like Clark run. The official story--and I can get it thoroughly documented--can be that he had a brain tumor. Benign, but it caused first a personality change, then increasing memory loss. That explains why he disappeared and never got in touch with anyone. He couldn't get a job any more, as his condition got worse, and was living on the streets. He finally collapsed and somebody took him to the hospital. They found the growth and took it out. Clark recovered his memory, though not what happened after the tumor started, and when he was able, came back. He didn't tell you before because he was uncertain about how he'd be received. That way, if anybody asks where he was or what he was doing, he can easily say that he doesn't remember." Lex's voice was so clipped and precise, it was at odds with the tender--no, loving--look at Clark before.  
  
"Is that acceptable, Mr. Kent, Mrs. Kent?" It sounded as though he were making an offer on a buyout.   
  
Martha nodded, but an expression of confusion on her face, as well.  
  
"I hope you'll let me provide him with tutors to make up for the years he lost of high school. It would be particularly difficult for him to return, and that way, he'd also be likely to complete it faster than three years."  
  
"And take the GED?"  
  
"Yes. If you'll also let me help with college admissions and tuition, I'd appreciate it."  
  
"After sixty million, quibbling over that seems...petty." That was not at all what Jonathan had meant to say.  
  
Lex nodded curtly. "That's in this folder, then." He put it on the table and then paused. "This second folder--copies of press clippings. It will be easier for him to find out that way, I think, than to hear from me or from you."   
  
"Clippings?"  
  
"About me." He got up. "You were wrong about me, Mr. Kent. You always thought I'd turn into my father." He paused and smiled bitterly. "I've become worse. And I know it." His eyes challenged them to contradict him. "He knows, by the way, that I didn't rescue him out of benevolence. I did it for revenge. On him. I slept with your son the night before all this happened. I thought he'd run away from me. I was going to make him pay for that. It turned out, of course, that he didn't. That doesn't matter now. Don't worry, I won't come near you or your son again. The sooner he's relieved by that, the better." He rose, pushing the second folder across the table, and turned to the door.  
  
Jonathan was there before him. Blocking the way. "Coward."  
  
That earned him a flash of anger. "One of the few charges that can't be laid against me, Mr. Kent."  
  
"It's the worst charge that *can.* You're too much of a coward to try to change. Scared of trying and failing? Hmmm?" He couldn't believe he was saying and doing this. Or he could, rather. He just couldn't believe why.  
  
"All right, I'm scared--but *only* of hurting your son." A chilling, almost menacing smile. "The one person in the world I'd actually mind hurting."   
  
"You can't fool me. If you were a real man, if you had guts instead of money and a sneaky little mind, you'd march yourself right up those stairs, wait for him to wake up, and tell him to his face everything you've done. And then you'd make yourself change. God knows what it is about Clark, but he can make people change. Become better. Become more human. But that's too hard for you, isn't it? So you're running away. Isn't that what a coward does?"   
  
Lex's lips were almost as white as his face. "Don't talk to me like that." Jonathan felt the rush of adrenaline. If Lex weren't shaken, he'd argue, not try to give orders.   
  
"I suppose you aren't used to anybody telling you the truth about yourself." As Lex took a step forward, as if to push his way past Jonathan, he focused all his force of will. "I saw how you used to try to prove yourself to me. You failed, Lex, failed each time. Lost every battle. But all you have to do to win the war is go upstairs. You can't do even that. As I said, you're a coward." This was the one moment. The moment when the game would be won or lost. He stepped away from the door.   
  
Lex's eyes dropped. Martha silently rose and stood near him, almost but not quite within arm's reach. "Go up, Lex." He raised uncertain eyes to hers. "Go up. You can do it." Taking a tiny step closer, she raised a hand and placed it, infinitely gently, against the side of his head. He jerked away from the gesture, and Jonathan felt a surge of resignation. They'd lost. Then, as he watched, Lex turned his head to look at the staircase, then slowly, silently, walked up the stairs. 


	17. Part 2, Chapter 1(?)

A/N:  
I really had no idea that this was happening until the Muse made it quite clear that she was hitting me upside the head. To continue the complaint of the clueless, I have no idea if this is the start of a full sequel or just an epilogue. Or just plain a mistake.  
  
I'd be really grateful for feedback, even more so than usual!  
  
Uhm, any other writers want to unionize? Demand statements of intent from the Muse before writing down a single word? Wait, forget it, I just heard the Muse laughing her head off all the way from here...  
  
***  
  
"I can't believe I did that," Jonathan muttered, as much to himself as Martha.  
  
She put her arms around him, "I do." Planting a kiss on his cheek, she added, "But that's just because I love you." She had a guess as to what it cost him to keep Lex from leaving. Especially after Lex had just said that he and Clark had had slept together.   
  
He was still looking towards the stairs with a worried frown. As much as she tried to convince herself that it was all going to turn out all right, that moments of grace have their own momentum, she was still afraid for both of them. But there was nothing to be done but wait and hope.  
  
She made more coffee, which they sat and drank in silence. Their eyes met at the sound of voices, just the murmur of sound, no words or tone, impossible even to distinguish Clark's tenor from Lex's baritone. The voices continued to flow softly past their ears. At least there wasn't shouting. For whatever that meant. Finally, quiet again, and the sound of motion, a few steps. Then another period of silence.  
  
They looked at one another again, and Jonathan said quietly, "Let's wait."  
  
She nodded. They let about ten minutes go by, hearing no other sound. When she got up, he followed.   
  
She wished for Clark's speed, to be up the stairs in an instant, and his sight, to be able to see what was going on. She stood in the open doorway of Clark's room, Jonathan behind her and looking over her shoulder.   
  
Her first thought was despite all incongruities, including Lex's long black duster and hairless scalp, and Clark's huge frame, that they looked like every illustration she had ever seen of children lost in the woods. Lex lay on top of the blanket, Clark tucked in underneath, but with his arms entwined around Lex, as Lex's were around Clark. Lex's head was tucked under Clark's chin, and Clark's hands met one another across his shoulderblade. They both looked as vulnerable and yet as protected as each could make the other.   
  
Martha leaned back slightly into her husband. It wasn't the end, not by a long shot, she thought to herself. What you've done can't be undone, what you've thought can't be unthought. But sometimes, there's that second chance. 


	18. Part 2, Chapter 2

A/N:  
Nope, no idea where this is going.  
Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results? Considering that once in a while I expect the Muse to let me know what she is up to, I think I now qualify for a nice room with very soft walls. But then, my friends and co-workers have been hinting at that for years.  
  
***  
  
Lex blinked muzzily at so many strange sensations as he woke up. In the fraction of a second before he could remember what had happened and where he was, through instinct or habit or both, he had tried to pull away from the arms clasping him. Upon remembering everything, he listened to the steady cadence of Clark's breathing, reassured that he hadn't awakened him. Clark's arms were as solidly around him as before.  
  
He still couldn't fathom what had happened. He'd have no problems reciting the events: Clark opening his eyes and smiling a blurry welcome at him, how he sat stiffly as he began the extended litany of explanations of just what kind of man he'd become, just what he had done, Clark's face as he had listened, the quiet questions that had been asked and answered--God, he hadn't been this honest since Clark left--and the eyes searching his. Finally, the absolute confessions and promises, and Clark's arms.  
  
The room was slowly growing more light and Clark stirred faintly, as if trying to roll over. Lex felt the arms around him tighten and the legs entangled with his move, and suddenly Clark had rolled onto his back, Lex still held as firmly on top of him. Though still nowhere near awake, Clark gave a quiet grunt of satisfaction, having managed both to change positions and keep Lex in his arms.  
  
Lex didn't even want to chuckle at the depth of his own infatuation, that the way that Clark merely turned over in his sleep filled him with an almost piercing tenderness. This way, he knew, led to doting on how Clark tied his shoes or the way he pronounced his words. And, he realized, this was just fine with him.   
  
He wanted to keep just Clark-thoughts in his head. Subside all his storms into that. Every anger, stilled, every bitterness appeased. He wondered if he could.   
  
Maybe Clark had been too ready, to quick, to forgive and accept. A wild past wasn't the same as a dark one. He kept his hand from snaking to touch the crow-wing glossiness of Clark's hair, fanned on the pillow.   
  
The arms around him tightened as if Clark had read his thoughts and was protesting. He raised his head and saw Clark looking at him and smiling in satisfaction, as though everything in the world were just right.  
  
"Morning," Clark murmured, voice throaty from sleep. Lex felt the vibration from just the one word seem to buzz through his entire body. "Scoot up."  
  
That was something he'd never heard in bed before. Intimate. Secure. It was only through great effort of mind that he kept from admitting that it was cozy. He obeyed, and Clark lightly kissed his lips, then, as if it had rewakened his own sensuality, began a leisurely kiss, tongue stroking and seeking out every sensitive place.  
  
Lex couldn't keep from responding, even if he had wanted to. If he'd been on the brink of falling off a cliff and had the choice of continuing the kiss or saving himself, he wouldn't even have considered it a choice, just kept on. Even the thought that seemed to insinuate itself in his mind couldn't stop him. Clark had never kissed him like this before. Never with assurance and...knowledge.  
  
He remembered their first kiss all too clearly. Clark's tongue had charged into his mouth with all the finesse of a puppy's slobbering licks, as though he were intent on scrubbing Lex's mouth clean. His own tongue had retreated in shock, like a dowager cat when confronted with an enthusiastic alley kitten. It had taken him a moment to recover from the realization that not only was Clark a virgin, he hadn't even really kissed before. He'd all but melted at the thought, and couldn't keep his mouth from curving in an indulgent smile even as he lightly flicked the bottom of Clark's tongue with his own, barely brushing it before retreating coyly, to reapproach from the side.  
  
He was glad he'd been leaning against the table, because his knees were ready to give way at the sudden realization in Clark's eyes that this was a kiss, not window-scrubbing, that it was teasing and promises and prelude. He made his tongue dance around Clark's, darting into his mouth to feather against the sensitive roof, lapping briefly at each side of Clark's tongue, watching the echo of this mirrored in Clark's eyes as they changed from startlement to sensual realization.  
  
They'd kissed again and again that night, but Clark was awkward, hesitant, clumsy still. But now...now he was assured, unfailingly seeking out the spots that most shivered at the contact.   
  
It shouldn't matter, he told himself fiercely as the kiss ended. Then the thought hit him. If Clark had become...experienced...it must have been...He felt every muscle tense with anger.   
  
He was still a Luthor after all, he realized, deciding against continuing, against pawing aside Clark's t-shirt to bury his mouth in the lines of the collar bone and shoulder. Not even Clark, not even being in bed with Clark, could change that. 


	19. Part 2, Chapter 3

He wasn't able to control the tight anger coiled in his muscles but he was able to control his voice. He made it as gentle and warm as he could, and found that that control was enough to let him raise a hand to stroke Clark's hair.  
  
"Clark--I *know* it's not something you wanted, but I have to know. Who...took advantage of you?" He could imagine, all too clearly, the kinds of lying promises, or even half-promises. *Do this, and we'll consider letting you go. No, that wasn't quite enough. Try again.* And Clark, becoming more and more certain that it was futile, but giving in, perhaps just to have what even he knew was an illusion of hope. It was all achingly familiar. After all, he'd done much the same thing, in more than one arena, holding out just enough hope to tantalize and humiliate.   
  
"Took advantage?"   
  
Clark seemed genuinely confused and Lex stroked his hair again, forcing away the rage that made him want to go kill somebody. In person. Bare hands. "Somebody there used you sexually. Who?"   
  
"No, nobody..." Clark was frowning. "Did he tell you they were, to make you want to come get me?"  
  
"Clark, I know it wasn't your fault. I'd have done the same thing, if I thought there was a chance that it would get me out."  
  
"You don't believe me." Clark's face hardened, and a line that already had no business being on his forehead at his age deepened. "You think I...let somebody..."  
  
Maybe he was wrong to have pushed him this far, this early. No, he was wrong. Clark's recovery had to come before anything else. But here he was, tormenting Clark with something Clark clearly wanted to forget. But he himself knew that denying something happened wasn't the way to forget. "How did you learn to kiss like that, Clark?"   
  
Clark turned red, from anger or embarassment. "So you think that I...no, nobody there touched me, nobody tried to. I had nothing else to do but think about...how I wanted to be with you again. I could imagine for hours what it would be like, just to kiss you." He pushed Lex off him, to the side. "But I never thought that you'd *still* not believe me." 


	20. Part 2, Chapter 4

"I'm sorry." Lex couldn't think of a moment when he had felt more stupid, more clumsy, more *wrong.* Not even from his childhood. "I'm sorry, Clark," he murmured again, all too aware of Clark's tight mouth and accusing eyes. He was unable to add that it was too much for him to believe, that the people who held him prisoner for three years had been more merciful than he would have been and that Clark had been spared any element he might have had to endure.  
  
The anger in Clark's eyes subsided into hurt and Lex bit back a bark of laughter. Yes, it was possible for him to feel even guiltier.   
  
He couldn't tell what uncertainty was lurking behind Clark's eyes, even when they softened. He was convinced that Clark was telling him the truth, but there was some hint of a reserved judgement, of thoughts withheld. He had to hold back laughter again--what would his father have said about a Luthor apologizing--twice--and then being grateful for what he was given? *Go to hell, Dad,* he thought as Clark, though still without a smile, rested an arm on his side, and he put his own hand on top of Clark's.  
  
A stripe of light had begun to cross the white ceiling. Clark's eyes closed again and Lex looked around the room. Only a few specks of dust hovered in the sheaf of light and he realized how *clean* the room was. It hadn't just been left as it was; it had been kept as though they believed Clark would come back any day. Even a rapid cleaning at the news of his return would have stirred up more, that much he knew from his rare forays into the less-used rooms of the castle.   
  
Clark's breathing had already steadied into the rhythm of sleep and Lex felt his guts churn with furious tenderness as he looked at the innocent, tired face. He was tempted to give him a last kiss and leave, to make sure that he wouldn't bruise him any further. But the promise he had made to himself and to Clark made him know that he would do no such thing. "I won't let anybody hurt you again," he had whispered. "Not even me." He smiled to himself. That promise was the most thorough trap he'd ever set--the fact that he'd set it for himself, knowingly, was an irony the Greek gods would have had a hard time equaling. Then again, Luthors were never known for modest aspirations or accomplishments.   
  
***  
Lex guessed that perhaps an hour had passed before Clark woke up again--the room was thoroughly light and a line of sunlight rested on Clark's tousled dark hair, turning some of the strands to dark brown. Clark yawned thoroughly and stretched, legs extending over the bottom of the bed.   
  
Apparently bygones were bygones, as Clark smiled lazily at him. "What time is it?"  
  
Lex pulled his arm from underneath his side to look at his watch. "Almost eight."  
  
Clark continued to stretch, then put a hand on Lex's wrist. "That's not your mother's watch." Lex wasn't quite able to make himself meet Clark's eyes.   
  
"No. It's...I'll put it back on." Clark seemed to understand and be satisfied, and with another yawn, got out of the bed and padded over to the window. He opened the blinds and almost seemed to rub himself against the sunlight that was streaming in, as if it were a physical thing he could swathe around himself. Lex watched as Clark all but purred, moving his body in an unconsciously almost dance-like series of motions to let the sunlight touch every part of his bare arms and legs. Fortunately for Lex's self-control, if unfortunately for his libido, Clark didn't pull off his t-shirt or shorts to let the light spill onto the rest of his body.   
  
"Oh, that feels good," Clark murmured, as much to himself as to Lex, and then, suddenly self-conscious again, faltered, "I guess I thought I'd never feel it again..."  
  
Lex was familiar with this, at least, with reassuring the timid teen boy that was still lurking inside Clark. He swung off the bed and went to join him. "It must feel wonderful," he smiled and touched Clark's hair again. He'd always wanted--no, required--dark hair, long enough to lose his hands in, in any date, let alone sexual partner, even before Clark. But after Clark, nothing had matched that living silk, as soft under his fingers and lips as down, or the fluff of a dandelion. Clark continued to bask in the sunlight as well as the caresses to his hair, finally resting his chin on Lex's head.   
  
Just as Lex was ready to slip his arms around Clark's waist, Clark's stomach growled loudly. Lex closed his eyes for a second--he was definitely insane if even that was endearing--and Clark blushed. So that had clung to him, too. Drinking in that blush, the embarassed stance, it was almost possible to feel that those three years were nothing, as long as they stayed in that room. 


	21. Part 2, Chapter 5

Sometimes, when the pond began to unfreeze in the spring, it would be with a huge crack down the middle, as jagged as a lightning bolt. Other times, warmth lapped at the ice from the sides, slowly wearing it away, each day's changes barely perceptible but the process unmistakable.   
  
During the bad winters, the cold returned harshly enough to refreeze everything. That meant frenzied hours of piling straw and mulch around the seedlings that had been coaxed into emerging too early, trying to protect them.  
  
Jonathan's mind was at ease with these events as part of nature. Even when he cursed under his breath at the midwest winters and their unpredictable nature, he never took it personally.   
  
He wasn't at ease when spring thaws and refreezing seemed to become metaphors. He wanted, like a kid, to poke Martha in the ribs to wake her up, so he wouldn't be alone with his thoughts. As that passed through his mind, he remembered--and God, it felt good to think of Clark's childhood again without bitterness--the many times when he and Martha had woken up to find Clark sitting, cross-legged, in the doorway, knowing that he had to be good and not wake them up, but just *willing* them to be awake. And then the huge grin crossing his still-chubby face when they were awake, and clambering on the bed for cuddling and playing.  
  
He realized that he had his past again. That he didn't have to keep searching his mind in the wearying battle to discover what had gone wrong. What he had done wrong. What he had done or not done, said or not said. And the frightening time when a bottle held, if not answers, respite from the questions. It hadn't been long, but long enough to leave its marks on both him and Martha.  
  
But now their boy was back.   
  
Except Lex Luthor felt the same thing. That Clark was back.  
  
It's easy to do the right thing once. Especially if it's something big.   
  
It's so much harder to do the right thing again and again and again. He knew how few souls--including his--thrive on self-denial. But that would be what he'd have to live with. Clark wasn't leaving Lex and Lex wasn't leaving Clark.   
  
Not for a long time.  
  
He wished he were happy about it. Happy for them. Even he had to admit that somehow it looked so--balanced in that room, where the two of them were sleeping. Like that Chinese symbol that so many of the high-schoolers wore on t-shirts that one year. Ying yang, that was it. The black of Lex's duster curling into the white of the blanket. The black of Clark's hair and the white of the reflected light off Lex's scalp.  
  
But balance can be broken. Nature can break the balance of the seasons by refreezing during thaw. A balance of sleeping bodies can be broken when they awaken.  
  
He realized he'd have to keep fighting for them. He hoped he'd not end up fighting himself to fight for them.  
  
On the other hand, maybe there was another way to think about it. He'd always told Clark that if one approach to a problem doesn't work, stop and rethink. The first time had been when one of the cows was calving. It was twins, too entangled for the cow to push out separately, too large to come out together. Clark had been, at nine years, too old for easy tears, but still sobbing at the animal's distress. He wanted to try to pull them out. Jonathan had explained why it wouldn't work, and instead told him he was going to push the twins back in, to get enough room to separate them. Clark had been so excited when it worked. He'd had a difficult time getting Clark to calm down enough to come back inside and get cleaned up.  
  
There was another way to think about this, too.   
  
Lionel Luthor had wanted to take everything from everybody. So wasn't the best way to repay taking Lex away from him? Grab the boy by the scruff of the neck, clean him up, reshape him as a good, decent man, and watch the change.  
  
Of course, it meant a change in him.  
  
He'd actually count it a win if he'd ever get Lex to call him "Dad."  
  
Petty? Probably. But he could live with it. 


	22. Part 2, Chapter 6

"Ahhhh. The set of 'When Skanky Ho's Attack,' I assume?" Chloe was looking over the magazine that Pete hadn't hidden in his backpack quite quickly enough.  
  
"It's a publication for the male who appreciates beauty."  
  
"Isn't that what I just said?" Chloe flopped down on the sofa next to him. "What's up? Or is that a tactless question under the circumstances?"   
  
"Fortunately, my grade in Pol Sci." Pete got up. "So in honor of that--" He raised his eyebrows questioningly at her.  
  
"Oh. Thanks. Small latte." As he reached to place his backpack on his shoulder, her eyes widened. "What? You don't trust me with your magazine?"  
  
"I *know* you, Chloe." He returned a few moments later with his hazelnut cream and her latte, hoping she wouldn't notice that he'd gotten her a large one instead, knowing she'd asked for the small in deference to his wallet and currently no student-job status. No, that wouldn't be a problem, she'd distracted herself. Just in the few minutes he'd been in line, she'd whipped out the draft proof of the latest student paper and was poring over it. He liked the way she'd not let it bother her, going from managing editor of the Torch to lowly newbie proofreader and dauntless reporter of what movies were playing at the Metropolis U. student center. But then, there wasn't much that he didn't like about her.  
  
Except for a very different torch she was carrying. In a way he wished that Clark had said goodbye in person and so delivered the kick to her teeth with his own foot, instead of courtesy of the USPS. That way, she'd have no reason to keep thinking, somewhere, in the back of her mind, that Clark was somehow a victim of Smallville weirdness, a meteor-transformation, rather than a Common Midwestern Asshole. They'd finally agreed to stop arguing about it, especially after she'd once said, with an especially angry expression, that he ought to know that meteors and such can make people do what they'd never do otherwise, but then shut her mouth firmly. She'd even tried digging through his adoption records again, thinking there might be a clue there, that somehow Clark's biological parents had something to do with it.  
  
He had to grimace at the way that it looked like he himself hadn't quite established residence in Moved On Land. Fortunately, she hadn't really emerged from the semi-coma that only improper use of semi-colons could cause her to enter.  
  
"Just a sec." He reached into his backpack for his cell phone, nearly answering it with "Hey, hot baby," as he was expecting a call from Tamara. Fortunately, he saw the Kent Farms on the caller ID, nearly swallowing his "hello" in the mental image of his having said that to Martha Kent. Or Jonathan Kent. That kind of experience could scar him for life, he mused.   
  
"Pete. This is Martha Kent. Clark's back."   
  
"What?" Chloe dropped her red pen at the sound of his voice, and he reached out to grab her hand, not sure if it was for him or for her. "Back? What? Where was he? What was he doi--" He couldn't feel anything other than shock.  
  
"He had a brain tumor--no, he'll be fine, it was benign, it's out, but that's why he...left like that."  
  
"He thought he was...terminal?" He felt the tears make his eyes feel ten sizes too big for their sockets. Idiotic, well-intentioned, DOPEY Clark, thinking he'd make things easier for everybody by creeping off to die...  
  
"No, no, it was pressing on his brain. It caused personality changes and amnesia. That was why he-"  
  
"Okay." He breathed a long, slow, breath, still clutching Chloe's hand. He met her concerned, *gorgeous* eyes and mouthed a "Clark. He's okay" at her. "So what happened?"  
  
"He doesn't remember much, but we're kind of piecing it together. He finally ended up in a hospital. They found it was a brain tumor, got it out, and while he doesn't remember anything much that happened after he left, he...remembered everything before that."  
  
"So he came home. Is he-"  
  
"He's asleep now, he tried calling earlier but you weren't answering."  
  
"I was in class, had the phone turned off."   
  
"So he asked me to try again."  
  
"Is he...would it be okay if Chloe and I came to..."  
  
"He'd love to see you. But he's a bit shaky still."  
  
"I can believe it. Poor guy."   
  
The conversation had slowed to the point that he could stop and summarize to Chloe, who probably had been planning to grab the phone to see if she could get some sense from the one side she could hear. He finished explaining and returned to Martha Kent. "If it's okay, we'll drive down now."  
  
"It will be great to see you again, Pete."  
  
"Thanks again, Mrs. Kent." Chloe grabbed the phone and almost shouted, "Give our love to Clark!"   
  
Chloe was grinning like an idiot and crying at the same time. Both teens got up and wrapped their arms around each other, rocking back and forth.   
  
Chloe whispered something in his ear.   
  
"What, love?" He couldn't believe he'd said that.  
  
She repeated herself shakily, red-rimmed eyes looking right into his, "Told you so." 


	23. Part 2, Chapter 7

Clark, Martha noted with satisfaction and amusement, was human enough to take advantage of his status as returned prodigal son. She suspected, from the openly harried look on Lex's face, that the debate over whether he should leave before Chloe and Pete arrived was one of the hardest-driven bargains of his life. Lex might have had years of bargaining experience and known all the tricks, but he was powerless before the dreaded combination of The Pout, The Lowered Eyes, and coup de grace, The Hopeful Half-Smile. Lex had gotten Clark's agreement only by conceding that he could say that Lex had been the one who finally found him and by agreeing to stay for at least a week. Clark had had the decency to look smug when Lex pulled out his phone and canceled all his appointments for that week. But still the same old Clark--he'd wanted his friends to like Lex and wanted them to see Lex as the person who rescued him, and she suspected that his wanting Lex to stay was as much to help Lex readjust as it was for his own sake.  
  
Pete didn't burst into rooms any more but Chloe certainly did. Martha didn't think that there was more than a second between the time when the car door slammed and Chloe was hanging from Clark's neck, squeezing him, drawing back a bit to look at him, and then back to a near-stranglehold. Clark was grinning and hugging back just as hard, then pulling Pete into the embrace as well. Yes, very much the same Clark.  
  
Chloe released Clark and spun around and Martha realized with a gulp, that she had turned into a very graceful young woman. When Chloe threw her arms around her, too, Martha returned the hug with a pang. She'd always hoped that one day...but as Jonathan would say, no use crying over spilt milk. Not when there were good things to cry over.  
  
"So what's been happening? Tell everything," Chloe demanded.  
  
"Off the record or on," Clark teased, and she stuck her tongue out at him briefly. They'd slipped into the old camaraderie as comfortably as into an old shoe, Martha noted gratefully. They'd catch up.   
  
"On, of course! Journalism student, Clark."   
  
"Mom said you were at Met U."  
  
"Yeah, but we want to hear about you."  
  
Clark looked pensive. "I'm sorry, but...I really don't remember much."  
  
Martha moved in before Chloe could throw questions at him. "Lex is still trying to trace what happened."  
  
"Lex?" Pete asked, his face hardening. Like Jonathan, he'd found his earlier opinion of Lex more than justified by his subsequent business and personal dealings, and made no secret of his feelings.  
  
"Yeah," Clark answered. "He didn't say anything, but he kept on looking for me. But I guess I was moving around too much or something, because they didn't track me down until I was in the hospital. I was in New York at first, then in upstate New York for a while, and then I came back to the city, they think."  
  
"But what were you doing?" Pete frowned.   
  
"Day labor, things like that. There's not much of a paper trail, so it was probably illegal," Clark admitted, and Martha winced inwardly at the quickly concealed expression of yearning tenderness that brushed over Chloe's face at the remark that was so utterly Clark. It looked like she wasn't the only one who had still hoped a tiny bit, she mused.   
  
"So how did Lex hunt you down?"  
  
Clark's eyes flickered at the tone of Pete's question, but he answered, "He just had an agency looking. They checked employment records, things like that, but also hospital admissions for anybody who looked like me. All over the country. Pete, he was really trying hard to help me."  
  
"I guess."  
  
Chloe moved to cover the moment. "But your mom says you're okay now."  
  
"Yeah. They got the tumor out, said that it's a rare kind that doesn't come back often, so it's looking good." He self-consciously ran his hand over the spot where Jonathan had shaved the hair and they'd put on a thin dressing.  
  
"How long do you have to keep wearing that?"  
  
He grinned. "Until the hair grows back. Hiding the scar."  
  
"Awww, c'mon, photo op," she coaxed, and Clark folded his arms and shook his head adamantly.  
  
"So what are you guys up to?"  
  
"Watching you change the subject," Pete answered. "I'm still making up my mind between pre-law and pre-business."  
  
"Based on which girls are in which classes," Chloe added quickly, and he shot her a withering look.   
  
"So what are you gonna do about the college thing, Clark?"  
  
"Not quite sure. Take the GED and then see who'll have me, I guess." Clark looked uncomfortable and Pete looked for a change of subject.  
  
"So you really don't remember anything? Man, that's got to be weird."  
  
Clark nodded. "Yeah, kind of like Ryan, you know, Kasper Hauser all over again."   
  
Chloe whistled. "You remembered that."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"But nothing about what happened when..."  
  
"Just having those headaches and then, wham...nothing until I woke up in a hospital bed and saw the calendar said 2006. I thought somebody was playing a weird joke, especially when the nurse said that Mr. Luthor was waiting to see me."   
  
"So he was right there, huh? You know, this could make a good story..."  
  
"What, now that it's got a celebrity?" Pete wasn't particularly amused.  
  
"Don't you have *any* sense of drama in your entire body? Man loses his memory, wakes up without remembering anything, the billionaire friend who'd been looking for him all along is right there...Clark, you could sell the movie rights or something!"   
  
"Nobody would *believe* that Lex Luthor would do something that wouldn't pay off," Pete muttered, and then jumped as a voice protested, firmly.  
  
"He's done a lot of things no decent man could be proud of, but he's also the one who spent all this time and money looking for Clark. *And* he went in person to get him. We do owe him that."   
  
Clark's jaw dropped as he stared at his father. Martha wasn't even sure who Jonathan was referring to as he concluded, "A man can change, you know." 


	24. Part 2, Chapter 8

Clark shrugged and smiled, half-heartedly. "If it's okay, I'll just stay here with Lex, catch up on reading some more," he said as he hoisted the last box of produce onto the back of the truck. Lex caught Martha's quick glance at him, and realized they shared the same anxiety. Clark had consistently avoided any kind of activity that might involve leaving the farm, and he had been reluctant even to leave the house. Even under his seemingly casual words of refusal, his tone was firm.   
  
Lex couldn't blame him. Leaving before had led to three years of unimaginable fear and pain. Though usually he used less euphemistic terms, at least in his own mind, to describe Clark's ordeal. Despite Lex's wanting to adopt his usual practice of finding the best experts, no matter what the price, and getting them onto the problem, he could hardly call in leading psychiatrists and counselors for Clark. Which was, he reminded himself, a score to be settled, though not a pressing one, compared to watching over Clark's recovery.   
  
Jonathan nodded slowly, and Clark's more habitual grin returned. "I promise we'll hit the books." Lex had ordered back issues of newspapers and magazines, books on current events, pop culture, technical developments, and anything else that would help Clark catch up on the missing years, and was talking Clark through the events and issues. He'd just gotten going in one explanation when Clark leaned back and booed, then laughed at his astonished face. "You were starting to speechify, so I thought I'd heckle. Get you used to it."  
  
Lex read more into Jonathan's consent. He and Clark hadn't been any more intimate than a few kisses and almost chaste caresses, and since that first night, he had slept in the guest room, by an unspoken but very clear mutual understanding with the older Kents. Jonathan was clearly indicating now that he trusted Lex with Clark. It reminded him of nothing as much as the first time that his mother had put Julian in his arms.   
  
When the truck drove off, Lex turned to Clark and deliberately, his eyes challenging, suggested, "It's gorgeous. Let's bring the books outside, we can go over the Cloning and Genetic Engineering Resolutions." Clark had been able to leave the house to help load the truck, and hadn't rushed back inside the way he had the day before, or looked abjectly miserable, as the day before that.   
  
"Nicer inside." Clark's eyes held a hint of a plea, and Lex immediately yielded. The one time he had tried to push Clark out of his uneasiness, had gone out to the far pasture over his protests and waited for Clark, the look of hurt bewilderment in Clark's huge eyes had brought Lex back with a whisper of apologies, mouth buried in that hollow where Clark's throat met his shoulder. Clearly, Clark couldn't be pushed on this. If he wasn't progressing as quickly as he could have, at least he was progressing. 


	25. Part 2, Chapter 9

Clark knew why his parents and even Lex kept wanting him to leave the house. He knew just how unreasonable it was to feel so lost and adrift when he wasn't inside, or in the loft or barn. But it just felt so *wrong,* so exposed.   
  
Even coming out of the barn after finishing milking the goats felt weird. Inside it was okay, though he knew he spent too much time looking over his shoulder, jumping at noises. He reminded himself again that nobody was watching him, nobody was going to throw him into a prison or try to make him tell things he didn't know or confess to being what he wasn't.  
  
Stepping outside, he saw a young woman picking her way across the grass to him. Something caught her eye in the grass, he guessed, since she stooped and picked it up before continuing towards him. He stared in an appreciation he wasn't quite sure was right for him to feel. But there she was. Lana's coloring, the soft, dark hair that looked like satin, but cut shorter like Chloe's, and with Chloe's bright, alert features. Her blue eyes were even more compelling than Lex's. He made himself stop just before concluding that she combined the best physical features of all three of the people he'd been attracted to.   
  
"Excuse me, are you Clark Kent?"  
  
"Uhm, yeah."  
  
"Lois Lane. I'm from the Daily Planet." She held out a hand and he shook it.  
  
"Oh, wow. I read your stories all the time." He didn't like the stories about Lex that much, but Lex just laughed them off, said that things were changing, she'd not be publishing more along those lines, for want of material. He'd never said she was gorgeous.  
  
"Thanks." A flash of bright teeth.   
  
"What can I do for you?"  
  
"I'd actually like to talk for a few minutes, if that's okay. Can I record this?"  
  
"Uh, sure. What about?" He nearly started to suggest that they go into the house, but she started immediately.  
  
"It's quite a fascinating story, your disappearance and return."  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"Your local paper gave it a paragraph, and I looked at some of the loose threads."   
  
'Loose threads?" He should have realized a reporter wasn't here just for him to, well, look at.  
  
"Can you explain why Lex Luthor kept looking for you all those years?"  
  
"We'd been friends. He's-" He had to pick his words carefully, but under those eyes of hers, he couldn't think. She took a step closer.   
  
"And can you also explain why none of the doctors who supposedly treated you gave a consistent description of you?"  
  
"They're busy people. Besides, they were really only looking at my head, right?" He tried to laugh as she moved slightly to the side, but yet again, a bit closer.  
  
"Or could you tell me why Lex Luthor took a week off to spend here with you?"  
  
"He's my friend."   
  
"LexCorp is engaged in a wide variety of neurochemical research and experiments. Do you think there's any association?"   
  
Clark shook his head helplessly. The barrage of questions, each coming from a slightly different direction, physically as well as metaphorically, was shaking him.   
  
"The hospital doesn't have any billing records for you." She pulled what looked like an envelope from her pocket, and a piece of meteor came out with it, tumbling at his feet. He dully realized that that must be what she'd picked up.   
  
"You dropped your-"  
  
She ignored him. "The agency that Lex Luthor allegedly hired to find you has an interesting anamoly in their records. All the computer files mentioning you have the same last modification date. Last Tuesday."  
  
He was trying to think. "Maybe they updated everything when they closed it."   
  
"And the hospital? No billing records? A patient record, but no billing."  
  
"They didn't know who I was until..."  
  
"Then why is there a name on your patient chart?"  
  
"I don't know!"   
  
"What would you say if I asked if you were in the hospital at all? If I asked where you really were?"  
  
"Please, I-I don't remember, not anything." If he could kick the meteor away, he'd be able to think more clearly. Unless she'd done it on purpose. How did she know?   
  
"You're wearing a bandage on the right side of your head, but the diagnosis said that the growth was on the left side." Oh, God. Dad had just guessed... "Where were you really, Mr. Kent? What were you doing?" He tried to move away but she was too close. He wasn't able to do more than scrape his foot along the ground, in his attempt to kick the meteor.   
  
She took a step closer and it sounded as though there were more voices barking questions. He closed his eyes, then tried to open them again, kick the meteor away, but stumbled to the ground instead. The interrogators shouted another question and each time he answered that he didn't know, they held one against his skin. But now they weren't moving it around, just leaving one small piece under his leg. Maybe they were going to do what they'd done earlier, put tiny particles in water and hold his face into it. Or force the water down his throat. The time they'd left him "to think it over," after jamming a piece in his mouth and duct taping it shut. He heard his voice again, but distorted, from a distance. "Please, I don't know where I'm from, I don't know why they sent me here, I never wanted to hurt anybody, honestly, I don't know, I don't know, please."  
  
"Whoa. Wait a minute. Are you okay?" Her voice was the strongest of the ones shouting questions. He opened his eyes, since it sounded like she was much closer. And maybe...he knew that they sometimes played good cop, bad cop, but at least when they did, it meant a few moment's respite.   
  
Now, it was another voice.  
  
"Ms. Lane, I didn't realize you studied interrogation at the School of the Americas." What was Lex doing here? 


	26. Part 2, Chapter 10

Lex stepped between the reporter and Clark, who was all but cowering. He didn't dare soothe him too affectionately, not in front of the damn reporter.   
  
"Clark. You're going to be okay." He kept his voice steady, almost dispassionate. He couldn't let himself sound too angry, either. "I'll explain to her that you don't remember."   
  
"But she...she..."  
  
"Shhh," he interjected, quickly. Would it be safe to leave her here while he brought Clark back to the house? A thought struck him and he thanked heaven he had put on his jacket before looking for Clark. Pulling out his cell phone, he called the house.  
  
"Mr. Kent? Can you come out to the barn? Clark's all right, but he was cornered by a reporter who didn't quite understand the concept of 'memory loss' and is convinced he's got a story somewhere."  
  
"Right." Putting a hand lightly on Clark's shoulder, he said, "Your dad's coming." By this time, the Lane woman was crouching as well, and had the audacity to look concerned.  
  
"I'm really sorry, Clark," she said, quietly. "I did *not* mean to-"  
  
"Drive a boy recovering from a major operation into a near breakdown?" Lex cut across her voice coolly. "Ms. Lane, if you have any questions about Clark Kent, you'll come to me or to his parents."   
  
"No. I'm leaving this story alone."   
  
Jonathan Kent had run up and Lex wryly wondered if it was native gallantry towards the woman or some other motive that made him all but shove Lex aside, rather than Lois, to get to Clark. "Come on, son. Let's get you inside." Lex helped him assist Clark to his feet, and then noticed the glowing rock. Not sure that it would help, but assuming that at least it wouldn't hurt, he put his foot firmly on top of it as he rose. "Thanks, Lex," Jonathan added.  
  
He hoped the reporter hadn't noticed the look of astonishment at the sincerity in Jonathan's tone, as he watched Clark quickly recover his strength and on his way towards the house, seem to hang on to his father more for emotional than for physical support.   
  
"I'm very glad to hear that you're leaving this story alone. After all, we live in a very litigious society. The Kents could well consider a suit, raise questions about your professional conduct in your approach to a very ill young man, and so on." He smirked. "It's a good decision."   
  
"I'm not leaving the story because I'm scared." She headed to her car, but turned to deliver an parting shot. "It's an ethics thing. You wouldn't understand." 


	27. Part 2, Chapter 11

Lex watched Lois Lane drive away and followed Jonathan and Clark back to the house, walking slowly and turning back to make sure that the reporter wouldn't double back and return. Sometimes she was that unsubtle. But she'd ceased to be a minor nuisance and a major amusement now that Clark was in the picture. He filed that thought to be dealt with later as he entered the house.  
  
Clark was standing against the table, bristling. At least he was in Angry Sulk mode. That, Lex could deal with far better than with the fear and flayed vulnerability he'd anticipated. Martha's expression of relief overlying her concern indicated the same reaction. Jonathan was himself still in Angry Father Bear mode.   
  
"If I'm going to make an idiot of myself each time somebody asks a question, then maybe I was right about not going anywhere." Clark bit out the consonants as he shouted.   
  
"Son-" Jonathan began, but Lex cut him off.  
  
"Clark, you were having a flashback. Somebody was partially recreating some of the circumstances," he couldn't think of the right words, or at least ones he could use in front of Martha, "you were in before. It happens with soldiers, Clark, hardly a sign of idiocy." He hoped that the calm, appraising tone would be easier for Clark's wounded pride than the verbal stroking he wanted to administer.   
  
"But what if it doesn't stop?"  
  
"I doubt that the circumstances will repeat themselves. You handled Pete and Chloe just fine, didn't you? She was trying to trip or catch you, she's an experienced and suspicious questioner, and while I don't think she was aware of what it was doing, there was a meteor right there."   
  
Some of Clark's anger seemed to sag and Lex felt a clench in his gut as he realized just how much fear was under the anger. Didn't Clark know that all three of them would do anything, give anything to keep him and his secret safe? Or perhaps he did--and didn't think it would be enough.   
  
"Lex is right, son." Now those were words Lex hadn't anticipated hearing from Jonathan any time in this life. Enough to let him shove his own fear and anxiety aside.   
  
***  
  
As Lex and Clark sat on the sofa that afternoon, physics textbook sitting on both their laps as Lex used light pencil lines to sketch a diagram to show acceleration as an object passed into a vacuum, Clark tried to concentrate. Instead, he kept thinking back to the morning's encounter with Lois Lane. He bet he made a real impression on her. Not just lying, but a nut case.   
  
Lex tapped the eraser end on the paper. "Clark, the object is going into space, but you don't have to follow it." If Lex hadn't also picked that moment to reach back and run a finger along the nape of Clark's neck, a feather's touch against the short ends of hair there, Clark would have found something to retort, but instead, he craned his neck to expose more skin to the caress and closed his eyes. He idly wondered why Lex's voice sounded deeper when his eyes were shut as Lex murmured, "All right, you're very persuasive. Study break."   
  
Clark couldn't help a grin as he opened his eyes enough to push the book and pencil onto the floor, and with a long, satisfied sigh, brought his legs onto the sofa so that he was sprawled across Lex's lap. He knew from experience that Lex would seize the opportunity to bury his fingers in Clark's hair and luxuriate in the feel of it, and his prediction was accurate. Clark looked up at the softness in Lex's eyes that he knew was reserved just for him. Well, just for him and sometimes when Lex said something about his mother or Julian. But he knew that Lex only let the affection for his lost family show when he was talking to Clark. Even Lex's nose seemed to become less arrogant. He reached up and passed his hand from Lex's nose to his cheek to the side of his head, where he fingered an ear. Lex chuckled as Clark said, lazily, "I like your earlobe."  
  
"My earlobe?"  
  
"Uhm hmm." Clark continued to stroke and squeeze the tissue between his fingers, adding, "It's the only part of you that's...squishy."  
  
It must have sounded as silly to Lex as it did to him, once it was out of his mouth, since Lex snorted. "You've got a real flair for just the right romantic words, Clark," he answered, then, to Clark's satisfaction, caught his breath as Clark leisurely ran a finger along the folds of cartilege, then returned to fondling and squeezing the lobe.   
  
As he ran his fingers down Lex's throat to slip under his shirt and nestle in the hollows of the collar bone, he watched the blue of Lex's eyes begin to be eclipsed by the dilation of his pupils. That, too, was just for him, now. His, his, his. Clark lifted his head from Lex's lap to tease Lex's parting lips with his, and then press hard in a kiss, watching the eclipse continue as Lex grasped his back, pressing him closer, and, when he pulled back to let Lex breathe, it was his name that Lex exhaled on that first breath, in a whisper.   
  
They had permitted themselves kisses and touches before, but with a reserve that was now abandoned. Lex reached through the buttons on his shirt to brush a nipple with the tip of a finger, then the smoothness of the back of a fingernail, and the change of sensations made Clark whimper and clamp his mouth fiercely on Lex's again, hot and moist and with the supple tongue waiting for him. "God, Clark," he heard Lex whisper, and the sound went straight to his crotch. It felt so wrong to take his hands from Lex's body for even an instant, but he couldn't ignore the demand from the one part of his body that now seemed to hold an absolute veto. But when Lex saw what Clark's unaccountably clumsy fingers were doing, his own hands snaked under and undid the button and zip, immediately capturing Clark's length in their warmth. Clark bucked into their grasp, hissing and almost keening as the sensitive skin seemed to feel every whorl and indentation of Lex's fingers. When Lex writhed backwards to be able to lower his mouth to caress and kiss the base, his hands still engulfing the tingling shaft and head, Clark gave a last ecstatic half-groan and felt the release as he came into Lex's cupped hands.   
  
In the luxuriant ease his body had nearly forgotten but now reclaimed, he murmured in sated satisfaction as Lex raised his head and kissed and lapped at the underside of his chin, slowly working his way back to Clark's mouth, as Clark fingered for his crotch. As the pupils nearly entirely encompassed the blue iris and shuddering and repeating his name, Lex came just as Clark caught at the head.   
  
Even though they'd had sex only one other time, Lex's shivers and almost garbled exclamations were as familiar to Clark as if each of his fantasies during his imprisonment had been real, so the sudden jerk to alertness startled him as much as if Lex had leapt away.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your parents just walked by and looked in. They were...a bit startled."  
  
Clark instinctively reached to redo his jeans but then stopped. "Well, they know we're..."  
  
Lex was calming down, too. "Lovers," he finished, firmly.  
  
Clark still adored the term and rested his head on Lex's chest. "And it's not wrong, and they're okay with it, and so..."  
  
"Still. A bit on the embarassing side."  
  
"It shouldn't be," Clark said, definitively. "It's natural and normal and what we are and-"  
  
"You're still blushing," Lex commented, but pulling Clark closer into his embrace. Clark pressed as close as he could, so that every inch of skin that could touch Lex was, and hoped that dinner was a long time off. A few days sounded about right. 


	28. Part 2, Chapter 12

After Clark's disappearance, Jonathan had been acutely aware of any unexpected sound or even sense of unexpected motion somewhere in the house, during the short period when he had been actively expecting his son's return. With Clark's return, that sensitivity had returned, with its accopanying unease. Telling himself he was an idiot, that it was the sound of the wood-frame house settling at night, he slipped from the bed as quietly as he could, jammed his feet into slippers, and went downstairs.   
  
This time he wasn't wrong. As his eyes adapted to the darkness, he could see Lex sitting at the kitchen table, as stiffly as a man on trial anticipating the sentence. The younger man turned around at the sound.  
  
"Lex? What're you doing up?"  
  
"I could ask the same, Mr. Kent." Lex smiled briefly and without amusement, but also without hostility or challenge.  
  
"I heard something."  
  
"I'm sorry--I tried not to make any noise."  
  
"Couldn't sleep, hm?"  
  
"No." As Jonathan watched him, Lex said, swiftly, "I realize what I have to do. I'm going to have to leave."  
  
"Why's that?" A flash of naked pain crossed Lex's face, reminding Jonathan that he was still dealing with a very young man. He sat across from Lex, and repeated the question.  
  
"That reporter this morning. She didn't come because a farmboy reappeared, she came to investigate what Lex Luthor had to do with it. It won't be long before there are more, looking for a story." Jonathan nodded, slowly. He'd always flipped past the stories with a disgusted growl, but there was little in Lex's life that hadn't been in the papers. "Sooner or later, there would be a photograph of Clark. Or just his name. I can't gamble that one of *them* won't see it." He got up and paced, slowly. Pausing, he gave another brief, humorless smile. "No, I'm not planning anything melodramatic. I'm not going to stage a quarrel so that he'll be glad to be rid of me. I'd...hope to stay in touch. Email, call. Even see him, once in a while. If he wants to. But the idea of a life together--it's impossible."  
  
Jonathan took a long breath and let it out in a sigh. "Lex, you're not...what I'd have picked for Clark. For one thing, I'd have wanted him with a woman," he added, with a rueful half-laugh. "Just that it would have made his life easier. Closer to normal. But that's now how it is. I've had to think about the two of you a lot. And this is the second time you've been ready to give him up."  
  
Lex's head turned, rapidly. "So you think I'm looking for an excuse?"   
  
Jonathan held his hand up. "Not at all. But you've been ready to give up your," he paused and shook his head slightly. "I've seen the two of you, I *know* that it's your happiness that you're ready to give up for him. For his sake. And in my book, anybody willing to make that kind of sacrifice shouldn't have to." He got up and put a hand on Lex's shoulder. "We'll figure something out yet." Lex raised startled, pale eyes to his, and he found himself giving the young man a quick embrace. "Clark chose the right one for him." As Lex still seemed uncertain, unconvinced, Jonathan knew he had to put what had come into his heart into words "I'm proud of you, son," he said, quietly. He hoped Lex would understand he'd chosen those words carefully, deliberately, and sincerely, and from the flash of gratitude and hope in his eyes, saw that he did.   
  
A/N: Sorry, the muses went on vacation for the oh, feels like several dozen fics I've got running. Dunno if the boulder of their laziness has been removed from the stream of their ideas and the waters are now ready to flood the basement of my imagination or what's going on, but hey, I just take orders... 


	29. Part 2, Chapter 13

"I'm proud of you, son." The words he had wanted to hear for so many years, spoken with the sincerity he had long ago given up hoping to hear, but given freely from another man's voice. There was nothing to interpret, nothing to strategize in response. Lex lay quietly in bed, letting his memory repeat that sentence again and again. Jonathan's prior analysis of him had been painfully accurate: Lex had always wanted to earn his respect and his regard, which had been finally given to him with no strings attached, no covert agenda. His mind was still so overwhelmed by amazed gratitude that it seemed to be floating, detached.   
  
Jonathan's sympathetic eyes had told him that the older man could sense his feelings, that his silence wasn't taken as unresponsiveness, and this was another thing Lex's mind held tight to. That, and another thing he could have learned from Clark and his family long ago: Fatherhood is far less biology than behavior. It was only in the unimportant things, now, that Jonathan wasn't his father.   
  
He nearly laughed out loud when his mind returned to the problem of how to protect Clark and presenting him with an answer. It was as if Jonathan's voice had made itself so at home in his head that it was exerting an influence. It wouldn't be easy but it had as good a chance as anything.   
  
Tell the truth. Or at least, a more cautious voice added, the important parts.  
  
***  
  
"Are you sure, Lex?" Martha's voice was dubious, but Lex could read her eagerness to be convinced.   
  
"Sure, no. Reasonably sure, yes." His smile sobered for a moment but he had to grin as Clark's hand slipped into his under the table, and squeezed it. The gesture's innocence even in covertness was entirely Clark's, and gave him still more confidence. "A reversal of the purloined letter. Reveal *a* secret and that should mean that nobody will guess even the existence of *the* secret."   
  
"Mom, it's something we've got to do. Lex and I are together, and that's just what we've got to deal with. He couldn't hide if he wanted to." Lex briefly wondered if there were some kind of sonic vibrations in Clark's earnest voice that made him want the words to solidify so he could rub against them like a cat, then chuckled inwardly yet again, at the depth of his besottedness.  
  
"I can't argue with the principle, but it seems risky." Jonathan rubbed the bridge of his nose worriedly. "If they do come after him..."  
  
"Then we'll know that there is a threat and where it's coming from. Clark will be safe from any immediate danger and I can work to counter-act anything that might come up. If I need to, I can call on some of the Washington connections I've developed." At least this was making some use of the past when he'd embraced everything that wasn't Clark. "A dark reputation can have its uses. Just as well it's not really dismantled yet," he added, crisply. The certainty that they understood was solidified by Jonathan's sober nod and Clark's renewed pressure on his hand.   
  
***  
  
Lex still felt beads of sweat line his palms, despite his assurance. Clark and his parents were safely in a hidden Los Angeles location, a Concorde ready to rush them out of the country at an instant's notice.   
  
He'd managed to track--through another swath of bribery and espionage--the personnel at the hidden military base. From there, building a dossier of personal information was nothing. That was being delivered, at that moment, to the base, as well as a video of him addressing them. The message was simple, "I'm Lex Luthor. Clark Kent is alive and under my protection, as is his family. You said that you kept him imprisoned to make sure that he'd present no threat to humanity. You have my personal guarantee of that--and of the fact that there's nothing I won't do to protect him. The documentation with this will tell you just how capable I would be of protecting him. Or of avenging him. It's in your best interests to forget entirely about him, as I'd gladly give my last penny and last drop of blood to keep him from enduring what he endured before. I trust I've made myself understood. Leave him alone and I'll leave you alone."   
  
It was difficult to tell, from Clark's generous-eyed view of the world, whether the facility personnel genuinely meant him no harm, but Lex was inclined to believe it. Once they finally accepted his story, the deliberate infliction of pain stopped and, to Lex's amazement, nobody had tried to exploit him in any way. Well, except for the man who had sold him. Clark had even described small attempts at comforting or kindness--the man who heated the water he brought Clark; the woman who, when he was still relatively alert, kept him up to date on the Sharks' latest scores; another woman who continually tried to develop pain killers that would work on his physiology; a man who, seeing him cry, went into the cell, gave him tissues, and sat down on the floor, staying with him in silent sympathy until he fell asleep. They and those like them would probably even be relieved to do nothing. His reputation would protect Clark from the others.   
  
  
***  
  
Martha suspected the beauty of the composition was a freak coincidence. The photographer had doubtless been intent only on documenting the fact that Lex Luthor was kissing another man, and the inadvertant humor of the textbook that had fallen between them. It had been a day when Lex had coaxed Clark outdoors and they had sat on the porch steps, while Lex was reviewing biology with him. At some point, they had stopped to kiss, and the book had fallen, closed, to the next step. The curve of Lex's fingers, wound in Clark's hair, the way his head was bent like a worshipper's, the abandonment of Clark's body as he leaned against the railing, raising his mouth to Lex's, all declared Lex's tenderness and Clark's trust.   
  
She wished she didn't want to burn the damn thing. Or, more accurately, the photographer and the publisher. Even the font of the caption, "Biology lesson!" seemed to smirk in vindictive smugness. The publicity manager at the former fertilizer plant had brought over the tabloid and disappeared in relief when Martha had said that Lex was still asleep, and flatly refused to wake him up.   
  
He, she thought, dryly, was only expecting Lex Luthor's temper tantrum. She was in the position of anticipating Clark's and Jonathan's as well. She couldn't wait. But then, Jonathan was likely to see it first, when he came back from the morning feeding, and after his reaction, everybody might be focused on moving to the few cities left standing. 


	30. Part 2, End

The explosions Martha had anticipated seem to have canceled one another out. When Lex saw the paper, his face compressed into the folds of rage, but when his angry eyes swept the room, they softened instantly at the shock that still lingered on Clark's face. In the immediate moments after, when Clark's incredulity faded, to be replaced by outrage, Lex's self-imposed calm was enough to make Clark catch himself after one shouted, "I can't believe it!" By the time that Jonathan came in from the first milking, that same calm had turned to purpose, and Lex was talking to his press secretary in Metropolis.  
  
"No, not 'no comment.'" Lex was clearly only half-listening to the response that followed.  
  
"I know all that. But let's just say that priorities have changed."  
  
"No, I'll draft it myself."  
  
"No, but *I* know what I want to say."  
  
"Let him rant for ten minutes, then tell him I don't need his services any more. I am *not* running. Not yet, at any rate."   
  
"A wise man knows his own priorities." His press secretary, Martha decided, must have been having kittens, judging from the satisfied and faintly malicious smirk on Lex's face as he hung up.  
  
***  
  
Lois Lane knew that if you arranged the facts, with just the right amount of speculation, you'd get the story. The rest of the details would fall in later.  
  
Fact: Lex Luthor didn't do anything that didn't benefit him.  
Fact: Lex Luthor had spent a week on a farm in the middle of a nowhere known as Smallville.  
Conclusion: There was something to Lex Luthor's benefit on that farm.  
Fact: Clark Kent had been through some kind of hell, but it sure didn't involve brain surgery anywhere in New York.  
Fact: Lex Luthor was hiding something about Clark Kent.  
Fact: Both Clark Kent and his father seemed to consider Lex Luthor an ally. Even a friend.   
Conclusion: Clark Kent and his father were making a big mistake.  
Fact: She'd made a rash promise not to pursue the story.  
Fact: That didn't mean she couldn't make suggestions elsewhere.  
Conclusion:   
  
Her phone rang, four IMs appeared on her screen, and there was what sounded like a miniature riot next to the fax machine. She strode out of her office with the confident walk of a woman who knows there is a big story somewhere and she will get to the bottom of it faster and better than anyone else could.  
  
"It's a joke. It's got to be a hoax!" One of the new reporters was sputtering.  
  
"Let me see." She efficiently yanked the fax from another reporter's hands, but held it so they could both read. It was a media advisory from Lex Luthor. Most of it was verbiage, but the salient phrases seemed to jump out, like over-excited kids demanding attention. "I am involved with another man." "Clark Kent's privacy and that of his family deserve safe-guarding, especially in light of his recent serious illness."   
  
Conclusion: Well, damn.  
  
***  
  
Lex, Martha noted, had lost nothing of his ability to preen or swagger. He was doing both as he came back inside after observing the effect that eight wolfhounds wandering the front yard had on the latest group of reporters to drive up. She could understand their consternation--she'd been rather uncertain about the whole idea when she saw just how big the dogs were, though once the breeder who delivered them made the introductions, the huge animals immediately accepted the Kents and Lex as their new best friends. They were disciplined dogs: The moment the first reporter got out of the car, they trooped to the front gate and just looked *ready*. Not a growl, not a snarl, but somehow that just suggested that the dogs weren't going to waste energy on displays.   
  
She did wish that the timing had been better. There was no way that she and Jonathan were going downtown to see the various Homecoming Day festivities, not after that photograph. Though the idea of encountering some of the more malicious tongues, with oh, three or four of the dogs in tow, now that was a tempting thought. But more seriously, she worried about Clark's reaction, and how well she and Jonathan were handling it.  
  
She could see the drain it took on his nerves to go outside before, and they hadn't pushed him, trying to take it in easy steps that he could handle. Part of it was that they all knew his fears were mostly irrational, but there was no denying that outside, there were threats. She'd read books on phobias and learned responses, and they seemed to be doing all the right things. In fact, she'd never imagined that the arrogant and powerful Lex Luthor could be so patient, so subsumed in another's needs. But they'd exchanged worried glances--she and Jonathan and Lex--when Clark had seemed so relieved when Jonathan had said that to avoid photographers, Clark had better skip that morning's outside chores. He'd looked like someone in front of the firing squad who was just given a reprieve.  
  
At least the day was nearly over. Lex had gone back to the living room, Lex as usual with the computer hooked up to the LexCorp network, and two cell phones, Clark as usual with his textbooks. She was finishing the last of the bills and it was Jonathan's night to cook. She could afford herself a few minutes to think.  
  
What drove them, she didn't know, but certain souls seem to be drawn to certain destinations. That was the conflict between her and her father: He was drawn to success, she to happiness. Happiness, for her, was this life with Jonathan, a life of integrity and hard work, with its warm core being their love, their family. Lex? Success had drawn him, drawn him against his own inclinations, and mercilessly forcing him to jettison everything else as it dragged him, stumbling and finally racing towards itself. And then Clark had appeared in the middle of that path, stopping Lex's progress with no more than the love and trust he had offered. Jonathan had strengthened that, with the fierce parental love that was ready to spill itself generously from Clark to Clark's chosen love, and now seemed to wrap itself around Lex for his own sake, to fill, without pity but with sympathy, the vacuum that the young man's need for a parent's love had created. Lex, like her, had now turned towards happiness. But Clark himself? Was he even choosing a path, or was inertia leaving him without direction, like a toy ship on a stagnant pond?   
  
***  
  
Conversation during dinner was desultory, until Jonathan mentioned Homecoming, in passing, as they were finishing.   
  
To Martha's surprise, Lex frowned. "Homecoming?" She didn't understand the look of concern and then resolve that passed across his face.  
  
"Something wrong?" Jonathan had noted it, too.  
  
"A night with its own traditions. Rituals, even, reinactments of darker times. It's not just coincidence that it coincides with harvest time."  
  
"The scarecrow, you mean?" Jonathan understood quicker than she, but she guessed that he was as lost at she in trying to understand the emotions passing between Clark and Lex. Clark's head was lowered, his shoulders tensed, as if he were bracing himself for something, and Lex was looking at him with a world of aching volition, like someone longing to pour strength into a vessel that only one person can fill. The two young men seemed oblivious to everything but this silent struggle.  
  
Clark finally lifted his eyes to Lex's with a tiny, timid nod, and she could almost sense the relief flooding Lex's thoughts as he smiled at Clark.   
  
"Now's the night that it's going to stop," Clark said, firmly, as he got up to get his jacket. Martha felt understanding wash over her--she should have known that it would be another's need that would draw Clark, that would give him not just the gentleness of goodness, but its preternatural strength.   
  
***  
  
A/N  
  
Feedback is she-crab soup with fresh scallions and ginger root for the fic writer's soul! 


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